Embracing Change and Creating Community with Beth Runkle

Military families know all about change and they are driven to create community fast. Otherwise, they suffer the inevitable consequence of loneliness if they don't.

Beth Runkle shares her experience as a military spouse and how she learned to break the cycle of loneliness and create community and impact those around her.

Resources for military families:
Cru Military's resource store: https://crumilitary.org/store/ including the marriage studies, the Bible study for military spouses, and the Combat Trauma Healing Manual and the When War Comes Home Manual.

REBOOT for Combat Trauma - https://crumilitary.org/reboot-course/ 
And, here is the link to REBOOT where listeners can find courses that help with Combat Trauma Healing in your local area: https://rebootrecovery.com

Guest Bio:
Beth is a proud military spouse of 25 years. She began a relationship with Jesus Christ a few years after she wed her military husband because of her involvement in a Bible Study. Beth and her husband saw their lives and marriage dramatically transformed by Christ and the Biblical blueprint for marriage and began sharing that information with other military couples. After 25 years, her husband was ready to retire but they weren’t ready to leave gospel-centered ministry to the military behind. So, they joined Cru Military's staff, a Campus Crusade for Christ division, and moved to Colorado. They work as missionaries to the military and are engaged in ministry to cadets at the Air Force Academy and other ministries to couples and women at the 4 military bases in Colorado Springs. Beth is completing a master’s degree from Gateway Seminary to better equip her for leading Bible study with military spouses and women. Beth and her husband have two kids in college.

Host Bio:
Teresa Janzen, M.Ed., celebrates God’s radical abundance as an international author, speaker, coach, and podcast host. More than twenty years in leadership and global ministry drives her to share inspiring stories with wit and insight. Her candid and personable style is sure to capture the heart of any audience. 
Teresa is a Board-Certified Christian Master Mental Health Coach (BCCMMHC), oral Bible study trainer, and professional life coach empowering the weary, worried, and wounded to experience

Transcript

0:01

We have to switch a perspective from being a victim, to looking around us and seeing how would God want me to minister right here right now? How can I be proactive and be as instrument where we're at? Welcome to radical abundance. Are you someone who embraces change or are you like me and you really dislike change? Well, I'll tell you. Today's guest is Beth Runkel. She knows not only all about change, but she also knows about chaos and control and all of these things. And she has found a way of living not only. With it, but thriving in the midst of it. So welcome Beth Runkel to radical abundance. Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here. So, Beth, I know that you and your family have a military background, and I just wanna start off saying thank you for your family service, cuz I know it's not only your husband who served it is your whole family. Thank you. Oh, well we were honored to do it, and those are our people. We absolutely love the military folks. And I know that you continue, even though your husband's retired from the military, you continue in a type of service. Why don't you take a few minutes? Just tell us about what it is you guys do. Sure. Uh, so my husbands are for 25 years with the air force. Um, and we really saw, um, throughout our journey, um, The military people were the people that the Lord had called us to minister to. And we did that for 25 years while on active duty. Um, but when it came time for my husband to retract retire, we did not feel that we should step away from ministering to the military community. So for the last five years, we've been serving full time. As missionaries to the military. And we work with an organization called crew military, and it is a division of campus crusade for Christ. We're at about 40 locations in the United States and then also 32 countries worldwide. And we work here in the Colorado area. Well, I know marriage ministry and discipleship, both very important in every, you know, aspect of life. But I do know that the military is unique and a lot of our conversation today, I know, will focus around the military, but I wanna encourage our listeners who maybe are not military service members to know that these things are also common to all of us as human beings and relationships. Yes. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about just how I believe that God calls us to interact and minister to people where we are at. So it applies, uh, in my life. It applied because of all the moving and all the change. And I really came to view those as God ordained times for me to be there, to interact with specific people. But I think that applies to any of us anywhere. Even if you're living down the street from where you grew up, uh, we need to just be looking around us to engage. In our midst, um, because God always is in business to draw people to himself and we can be an instrument of that just by opening our eyes and having eyes for how God might use them. Okay, Beth, I know that you have it all together. You know what you're doing, but I also know that you probably have not always been in the state that you're in right now. Am I right? Oh, absolutely. So we met at a wedding. He was in the military already, and I didn't know anything about the military. We dated long distance and he was a great guy. So I decided. To marry him. Um, but I really did not understand what marrying someone in the military would entail. Um, we moved three times our first year of marriage. And to be honest, I was bitter reluctant and selfish, and I really hated everything about the military. And sadly, I made it known often to my husband. So, um, that was really hard. Um, and I think part of the reason that I was. So self-centered is I did not have an active faith in Christ. I did not have a personal relationship. And I was just concerned about, well, what about me? And I think I was struggling with identity a bit because when you are married to someone in the military, You really do have to walk in their shadow a good bit, right? Because it's their career where they move the different trainings they have to go to. And I had to do a shift of my identity in what I did. Um, and you know, my career. Even though it didn't continue, but I had to shift it, um, to have the perspective of what God might call me to do. And more importantly, my identity in Christ and who he says I am. Yeah. For sure. Those feelings that you talked about, there were three of them, bitter, reluctant and selfish, I think. Right. Wow. Thank you for that self disclosure. I think all of us, if we're honest, We can say that we have had those same types of feelings. And even that feeling of being in someone else's shadow, whether it's your spouse, because he's in the military or ministry oftentimes, or some other job, um, where you just feel like. Maybe your contribution isn't as significant, you know, families are, are a unit and it takes everyone doing their part and communities are too. And so I think that these are feelings that everyone can relate to. So help me understand what took you from bitter reluctant and selfish to the joyful purposeful woman I see before me today. Yeah. Well, it was a journey that the Lord took me on. I had grown up in a home where we regularly went to church and I knew all about the Lord, but I didn't know him. Um, God really had to take me to a point of humility, uh, where I saw my need for the Lord. Um, and he did that through several people that, um, pointed me to the Lord, but ultimately it was getting involved in a regular in depth, the Bible study, where God revealed to me. You know that I didn't know him and that he greatly cared about me and also seeing myself as a sinner. I think, you know, previous to that, my standard was comparing myself to other people, you know, and that's not God's standard. Um, there isn't a scale in heaven that has my good works on one side and my bad works on the other, you know, it's really God's standard is have we ever sin? Um, which I certainly have. Um, but Christ came and. The penalty for us on our behalf. Um, so seeing that and really digging into scripture, and I really saw the word come alive. Um, I had never really felt like it was something that I could understand for myself before. And God had me in, um, Genesis and the character of Sarah, you know, Abraham's wife, Sarah really spoke to me. I felt so seen. Because I really feel that so many of the challenges that Sarah faced were so similar to mine, um, military families move a lot. We moved 14 times. Um, during the time that my husband was on an active duty and I saw that Sarah, I believed that Sarah and Abraham did the very. PCs. And that stands for permanent change of station. That's just all the moving that we have to do that is out of our control. You know, God called Abraham, Hey, Abraham, leave your, your land and your family to a place that I will call you. And that is so much like what ends up happening for a military family. We're constantly leaving home and having to resettle. And you. All the moving is hard. Uh, we get pretty good at packing and unpacking, but it's, it's always something that's somewhat difficult, but we have movers who come with moving trucks. Sarah Abraham had to do it with camels and. Donkeys and, you know, pack up all their belongings and then they were living tens. Um, so it gave me a perspective shift. And then also I saw so much in Sarah's life that I was dealing with. Um, you know, she was having to leave her family and everything she knew and go to an unknown place. And it took them a long time to travel that almost thousand miles. And I really think that loneliness would've been a big challenge for her as well. And that also spoke to me because that's a hard part of being in a military family is that we are constantly having to reestablish our relationships, make new friends. Oftentimes we have a friend and then they get moved before us. So I related to that and I, I really feel like Sarah May have relied on the Lord in a way that I needed to rely on the world, Lord. And then one other thing I thought was that I think that Sarah was married to a warrior. Um, Abraham and his servants had to go out against the four Kings to rescue his nephew lot Abraham and his 318 trained. Went to fight these four Kings in all their armies. And I can imagine if I were Sarah, I would've been like, Hey Abraham, this probably, isn't a very good idea. Like that's probably not gonna be safe. You're not a warrior. Um, and you're going against, you know, all these armies and really the odds were totally stacked. That also spoke to me about, I could take Sarah's example and trust the Lord as my husband would go out. Um, and you know, I don't even think that Sarah had the ability to Skype or FaceTime with her husband while he was out on deployment fighting these, um, other Kings and all of their armies. Um, so I just really saw myself in the scriptures and I saw. Just an abundance of the Lord's care and love for me. You know, what amazes me about that story. I love how you connected with Sarah and the scriptures and the fact that, like you said, she didn't have the moving truck and the guys to come and load everything up. And she had to deal with camel's donkeys and tents. Oh my goodness. But she didn't have the gift of the written scripture, the way that we have it either. So I don't know who were her. Um, heroes to look up to and how blessed we are because we have the scripture and we have that example to reflect on and to see God's faithfulness. The one thing we know about God for sure is he doesn't change. Of course there are other things we know for sure, but we do know God doesn't change. And as he was faithful in Sarah's life, and as he's been faithful in best. Life, he can be faithful in Theresa's life and he can be faithful in the lives of the people who are listening. Cause right now I'm sure there's someone who's listening. and saying, well, yeah, that Beth Runkel, she has it all together and she's figured it out, but I haven't. And so how can you help someone right now who is saying, well, that's great for Beth that she can just move to a new town, make new friends, join a new church and start ministry in her community all in the first 24 hours. Right. Well, it certainly wasn't easy in the beginning. I struggle with control issues. And when you are a military spouse, everything is completely out of your control. I mean, that, that is normal. That everything is out of control and chaotic. I just continued to press into the Lord and ask him to change me, um, and also be open to the spirits, leading on things that I could do to improve my situation. The first couple of moves, I spent a lot of time, very lonely feeling, sorry for myself. Um, you know, with this lot in life and oftentimes we would move and then my husband would. I learned that I had to create a community and I think that's especially important now. So this was, you know, over 20 years ago, um, we have to create community. We have to get off of our screens and try to engage those around us. So I just started, you know, putting myself out there, being somewhat vulnerable with new people, you know? Hey, would you like to get together for coffee or you. Do you know of a Bible study? And if I didn't find one, just start one and I might start it with one or two people and then it would grow. Um, I just think we have to switch a perspective from being a victim to looking around us and seeing how would God want me to minister right here right now? How can I be relying in the power of the holy spirit, but to be proactive, active, Be as instrument where we're at. I just think it's a perspective ship instead of it's all about me to, how could God use me? that is a really great reminder. It is very easy to get wrapped up in our own feelings. And especially when life seems a little bit unfair. And I imagine that military life seems unfair from time to time. You don't even get to say sometimes where you're going or when you're moving and all of that type of stuff that, you know, that's supposed to be part of being a grownup is deciding what you wanna do with your life and where you're going to live. But. It's something you surrender, you choose to surrender that to someone else's control and, um, that is difficult to do. So what advice can you give to someone who feels like, well, yeah, I, I might get absorbed in myself sometime, but it's not fair and it, I should be able to have those choices and it's not fair that I don't. Well, I think that the illusion that we are in control of our own life is really an illusion. Um, because I think God is ultimately in control. He's orchestrating all the events at all the same time to allow things in our lives. It's really just a perspective shift and being a military spouse is very hard. There are times of tears. There are times of this is just so hard. There are times where. It's just hard to get out of bed and continue to face the difficulty. But for me, I absolutely have to be in the word of God to renew my mind. Right. I, my mind wants to be selfish, wants to feel sorry for myself and listens to the lies that the enemy throws our way. And I have learned. That if I am not in the word of God, I am gonna be self consumed. I am gonna be negative. But if I'm in the word of God, God speaks to me. I mean, that's what I saw when I originally, you know, came to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is that God can use the word to speak to our situation. So I would say if you're struggling and you're feeling down, get in the word, get involved in a Bible study. There's. Online Bible studies everywhere now engage your neighbor. Um, and I think that we need that accountability. I love the word of God. I mean, I'm in seminary to learn more about the word of God, because I'm crazy about it, but even I need accountability. To keep up with my homework and then just to have others to engage with. Oftentimes that most time God speaks to me through the word in my own personal study, but also he uses the community of people that I'm with sometimes to give me a word through one of my sisters in Christ. So I would just encourage you to get in the word and get in the word with others. You know, initially when my husband and I came to Christ, um, our mayor was in a really hard. Um, and it was a lot because of me and my selfish perspective. Um, but we went to a marriage retreat, um, by a ministry. That's actually a part of crew who I work for now and it's called family life and they do a weekend to remember. And at that weekend to remember, we saw that there was a biblical blueprint for marriage about how marriage should go. That we were totally not falling following. And they spoke into us there about sharing these concepts with others. So another thing we began to do was offer small group studies in our home for military couples who wanted to invest in their marriage. And that's something we continue to do, but that community, those people, those were our people everywhere. We went, we just started a new group and that became our. In this new location as I look back on now, I am so glad that I married a man in the military. It was so good for me to not have control of my life. You know, the things of this world kept kind of being pulled out from under me. I mean, because we were moving like every 1.3 years. Um, and I think that God ordained that for me so that I wouldn't try to cling to things in this world that I would cling to. and that also I would have this community perspective, you know, and rely on people, but most importantly, rely on the Lord more than anything else. One of the things I really love about your advice to get into scripture when you find yourself being self-absorbed or ungrateful, is that because you were in scripture, you were able to find the treasure of Sarah and be able to relate to her. And if you don't. Put those tools in your heart and in your mind, then the holy spirit has less to work with to bring to mind when you know, the opportunity is really needed. I find that the more that I am in scripture, the more that I put into my heart and my mind, those passages that I study seem to come up a lot. And that at first I thought that's really strange that I can relate this situation to that scripture. I read last night and I can relate this to the study that I was just doing. And then I realized those situations were coming. And the word of God is just applicable to our daily lives today. It's very relevant. It's not just about back then. 2000 years ago, 3000 years ago, 5,000 years ago, it's relevant today and we can't see it unless we put it in our hearts and minds. And I also like how you took control in of that opportunity in your new communities, by starting a. If there's not one there already, and that's something that worked great for you. And I think other people you can either look to see if there's something there or, and if there's not, why not start something, it doesn't have to be huge. It can just be a few people. I love that example. What you're saying is so consistent with Roman's 12 one and two, you know, we are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. Um, and we have to do that in scripture. I also do wanna point out for your listen. if somebody's in a really hard place. I also really believe in Christian counseling. You know, everyone in my family has gone. My husband and I have been multiple times to work on our marriage. Um, and there are times where it's necessary and that's an. A gift that God gives us, that we can have, you know, Christian counselors that can help us with getting out of this stuck place with our thought life. I love that. You mentioned that. Thank you for that too. I have one of my daughters. She says everyone should be in counseling. She has found it so transformative in her life. And I would agree with that. I have a lot of coaches in my life, and then there have been. Times when I've needed a counselor. Also, you know, a counselor kind of helps you deal with those things behind and a coach kind of helps you supercharge to move forward. Absolutely. And absolutely both of those are really important and it all comes back to community fellowship and the body of Christ. And I think. Where the nuts and bolts are, whether you're in the military, whether you're in ministry, whether you're in a community, it's all the same thing. It's about living life together. And that's how God's designed us to be. You know, I went from being lonely for like six, six months at the beginning of each move to. A week or so, because I just jumped right in and began inviting people to do things, um, to make that community because I know I might not be there very long. I just kind of go ahead first with, okay, here I am. This is the real me. I struggle. I've got weaknesses. I don't have it all together. Do you wanna do life together? Um, and sure. It's risky on my part, but honestly God has never let me down with me. Putting myself out there and being vulnerable to someone. I mean, I pray about who I'm gonna do that with. Right. And then God brings me a, a deep friendship quickly because as a military family, we gotta go deep, fast, because we're gonna be moving again. Um, if we, you know, if we don't have years. To build a deep friendship. We gotta dive deep. One of the things I really appreciate about the younger generation today is that they're so willing to be authentic and vulnerable and real. And when I was a young mom, With kids everywhere and Cheerios all over the floor and all of that stuff. I felt like you, I couldn't ever let anyone into my house in the midst of the chaos, which meant I couldn't let anyone into my life. I always had to have this veil of protection up and I really love how real the world has become nowadays. I think that it helps people connect and go deep, faster than. we used to do. Yeah. And you bring up, you know, um, feeling like your home has to be perfect to invite people over. I mean, I think I have the gift of hospitality, but it's not what most people would think. Um, I don't throw grand events. Um, you know, they are not gonna be Pinterest worthy at all, but I opened my. Very often. Um, and I keep it minimal because I just don't have that gift of throwing an awesome event, but I'm willing to open my home and let other people in. Um, and I, you know, I always made it simple, um, because I wanted other families to, who came to my home or women who came to my home to recognize. That you don't have to do a big production to invite people into your home. You just have to open the door and let them in and recognize, Hey, the bathroom might not be perfectly clean and there might be some clutter. And if you have little children, there might be toys all over the floor, but I'm welcoming you into my home because I wanna welcome you into my heart. And I. Necessarily have it all together. So you and I have spent a lot of time talking about the wives and even the family, but how does this all fit together with the husbands? Well, they need community too. Um, they have, especially my husband was a fighter pilot. They have community there, but I don't know that it's. As authentic of community, um, as they need. And when they're serving in the military, it's a stressful environment. Um, you know, I mean they face real danger. Um, mostly every day they need Christian community. Um, you know, being in the military is not different from serving in any other career in. it's the world, right? There are people that are not following hard after the Lord and there are temptations. So they need to know, um, from my husband's perspective, you know, he needs to know, Hey, that guy's gonna have my back or that guy's gonna help hold me accountable when we go in deployment or, you know, I know that girl. Um, is gonna, you know, be in Bible study, um, when we're on deployment and, you know, I, I can chat with her about that. Um, they need other people they know that are trying to follow hard after the Lord as well, and they need community. Well, I'm going to put a list of resources in the show notes that people, um, can access, especially military members can access when they're looking for community and the exact type of thing that you're talking about, that crew military has to offer. And as we wrap up here today, I'm wondering, Beth, do you have some final words for us? Yeah. Well, I'd briefly like to mention a couple of the resources, um, just because I think they're really easy to engage others. We began using these resources and we were new believers. Um, they're very easy to use. We have three studies that are designed for military married couples. Um, one of them is called defending the military marriage, and then we have defending the military family. Those are both. Four weeks. So it's a very small investment and, you know, you could just do it every other week, um, to get through the fourth session, to bring people into your home for community. We also have one called making your marriage deployment ready, which is awesome to do with other couples. Um, if you know of an upcoming deployment or it's just a reality that we're gonna deploy, um, and it really helps, um, prepare you for the deployment, um, work on your marriage and work on them, leaving. And then also sometimes the hardest part about the deployment is the reintegration. So I would encourage people to check those out. They're. Really affordable, um, and super easy to do. We do also have combat trauma resources, um, for, um, those who've served in the military or are currently serving in the military who suffer from any sort of combat trauma or, um, other invisible wounds of war. These are commonly called PTSD, but there's other wounds that you can have besides that and these resources. Called, um, the combat trauma healing manual, which is designed for the person with the trauma. And then we have, when war comes. Which is designed for this spouse. And I do wanna briefly mention that we have these groups that you can get involved in. You could do the resource yourself. Um, but we have them, um, in many of our locations throughout the us. And then we do partner with another ministry called reboot and, um, we offer 12 week small group. That are designed for the person with combat trauma and their spouse to come together and get spiritual healing in these areas. And what I've noticed from the course that we led is that often the spouse has secondary, um, PTSD, which exhibits very similar symptoms. Um, and then on top of that really has no. That she, or he can talk to because PTSD is very difficult to deal with. And a lot of people don't understand, um, some of the anger and addictive issues that they have. So. The spouse and the person with combat trauma come together in this course and they get community to help them move on towards healing. Um, I know that, um, from the different areas that I travel around, the us combat trauma seems to be one of the most. Prevalent issues that our military members have. So I would encourage you, um, to also check out the reboot website to find a group, um, and we are hoping to roll out more resources in the future to specifically address, um, some of the issues in the military family. I would love. Uh, to be part of writing some Bible studies or devotionals or something like that to specifically address the unique challenges that we have, uh, to reach more people. Because I think I cannot imagine this side of our journey, having gone through all the chaos, all the change, the loneliness, the challenges without knowing that God was so. And he was absolutely in control and that was what got me through. So I just wanna point other people to that as well. Thank you for that. So much, Beth and the links. Everything will be in the show notes. Thank you for taking time with us on radical abundance today. And I really wish you a radically abundant day. Great. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Theres thanks for what you do.