Alyssa Bethke > Quotes

“We can live free, joy-filled lives when we live surrendered. When we embrace our realities and enter into his rest. God is a God of order and peace, and he has ordained peace for us. He wants us to live lives that are full of love, joy, and peace. But in order to do so, we must surrender and live for the audience of One. We must learn to be comfortable in our weaknesses, to let his power be on display in our lives. Recently a friend shared how hard this season has been for her, and through tears she admitted, “Sometimes I get so frustrated at the Proverbs 31 woman. She seems to be perfect and able to do it all. I can’t do it all. I can’t live up to that standard. And then when you look on Instagram, it seems like everyone is able to do it all.” And then my other friend, Carly, spoke this truth that will stick with me forever: “Yes, but she didn’t do it all at once. Her life was in seasons. Those verses were about different seasons in her life. She grew, learned, did different things at different times. We can’t do it all and aren’t being asked to. We just need to step into the season God has for us and fully embrace it, frailties and all.” Life is lived in seasons. God does not ask us to do it all. What he asks of us in this current season is to abide in him, to pray, and to find our all in him. He will do the good work through us. He will show his power and might. Our job is to be willing, obedient, and honest. When we let go of the pressures and expectations, embrace our weaknesses, and let his love satisfy us, we can live free and happy lives. No, we can’t do it all, and we aren’t asked to. Yes, we will fail and let others down, but those are moments to humble ourselves and be reminded of his grace. My friend, we can step into our day, into our season, into whatever God is calling us to do—whether it’s adding or subtracting responsibilities—and walk out in faith, because he is God and we are simply called to live faithfully. In our weaknesses, sometimes crawling on our knees, all the while looking to him. He is delighted in our hearts when we trust through surrender and obey through love. We are enough. You are enough.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“During school recess when I was in second grade, I was swinging on the monkey bars with a couple of girlfriends, and one of the girls said to me, “You’re too fat to swing like me.” It hurt at the time, but I kept playing and forgot about her comment. It didn’t really affect me, and it wasn’t something I shared with my mom when I got home that day. Twenty years later, as I was writing a Bible study on finding freedom from body-image issues and telling my story of a six-year battle with anorexia, I remembered that moment on the monkey bars. And I realized that she was the voice I’d heard for years. It was her words that had started my doubts and fears and worries about my body, and one of her words that I shaped my identity around—fat. Now, it was my choice to believe her words, and I was the one who wrapped myself in those lies for so long. However, it amazed me how such a simple sentence, spoken when I was very young, dramatically affected my life. Words matter.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“Being women of faith doesn’t mean we won’t feel fearful; it means that we won’t be defined by fear. It’s our doing that brave thing anyway, even if we’re shaking, as we rely on Jesus and his power. A lot of our lives will be spent doing the right things, the hard things, in our fear. A normal day may require us to surrender and confess our fear every hour. We don’t have to grasp for control, and we don’t have to conjure up faith on our own. We simply can call out to Jesus and ask him for help.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“Grief takes time. It’s like a person you have no choice but to welcome into your life and become friends with. You can’t just run away from it. You can’t think that it’ll be gone in three easy steps, or after so much time, whatever that timeline is in your head. It’ll make unwanted visits when you least expect it. But eventually, your grief will do a good work in you. Eventually, when it’s placed in the nail-scarred hands of Jesus, it will bring redemption. It will bring holiness, depth of comfort, intimacy with the Savior, and the capacity to empathize with others’ pain; it will usher you into a place of true surrender and of being able to trust the God of mystery in a deeper way than you ever did before.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“You are you. And this world needs you. Not a you who’s more like her. But you. A strong, confident, humble you. A woman who keeps her eyes on Jesus and knows who she is in him. A woman who rests in her identity in Christ. You are God’s daughter, and you are loved, cherished, and wonderfully made. You were given gifts and talents to be used for his kingdom. You bring light and beauty to this world in your own unique way.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“We are God’s workmanship. We’re his masterpieces. God created each one of us. He had a plan and a purpose for our lives before time even began, and he handcrafted us to be unique and bring beauty to the world, each in our own way. No, we won’t all have the perfect fashion sense, the cleanest house, be able to juggle it all, or have a Pinterest-perfect life. We won’t all have a platform or be an influencer or run a business or open an Etsy shop. We can’t be everything we admire in everyone we know. We can’t do foster care and host people all the time and make the most delicious bread and look like an ad for our local gym and homeschool and travel all over the country and lead five Bible studies and restore furniture on the side. Let’s learn from each other. Let’s be inspired by one another. And let’s fight against comparison. Against the lie that we have to do it all and be good at everything. Against the lie that we’re not enough, that what we have is not enough.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“God was wanting to renew my mind with his Word, to make me strong and steadfast and to engrave true hope into my heart. I languished and doubted and came to him weary and exhausted, but he wanted me to keep having the hard conversations, keep pursuing unity and peace as much as I could, keep praying and pleading and boldly coming before him. Keep hoping. Keep filling my mind with his truth. Instead of telling myself it was so hard over and over and over, he wanted me to renew my thoughts with his truth. Then I started listening to the hymn “’Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus.” Over and over, the words made their way into my soul. “I’m so glad I learned to trust him” and “I know that he is with me.” Eventually, I stopped focusing on all that was so awful and broken, and I started to ponder what good work he was doing through it. How was he developing my character? How was my hope being strengthened? I was enduring, through him. “I’m so glad I learned to trust him.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“I’ve realized that giftings naturally pour out of us, even if they still need to be shaped and matured. Sometimes we can’t see what our giftings are because they come so easily—“Oh, not everyone enjoys this?”; “Not everyone can do this?” We must speak truth over each other. Tell someone what gifts and abilities we see in them, tell someone when we see them coming alive. Parents, this is especially true for us. Kids shouldn’t be left to “go out and find themselves.” We have been given the gift, and the responsibility, of bringing out and encouraging the giftings that we see in them, and of leading them in wisdom. Pray over them. Ask God to help us see them as he sees them and speak that over them. Our words matter; they can change the trajectory of lives, for good or bad. We live into what is spoken over us.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. PSALM 23:4”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“Yes, as with all good stories, they include tragedy and sorrow and pain. Longings and desires, disappointments and setbacks. Not because God wrote those in, but because we live in a fallen world and are flesh. We will experience pain because we are not home yet. But as our good Father, he redeems all things. He is writing something beautiful. He is writing a story that will bring great glory to himself, that will bring hope to many through you. Your story is a good one. It includes a future full of hope and goodness.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“One day our faith will be turned into sight. One day our pain will be completely gone. But while we wait, we can have true, sure hope because God is trustworthy and he cares for us. He gives us every good gift, and he is a God who works miracles. That’s what he does. He’s in the business of miracles. It’s a funny thing to be in between. To believe in the God of miracles and yet wait on him for ours. To believe he can work and answer our prayers and yet to be content when perhaps his answer is different from what we thought it would be. To wait with hope and yet find our true satisfaction while we wait.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“We have a choice to choose fear or to choose faith. Sometimes, that choice is a one-time thing, but often it’s a day-by-day, sometimes moment-by-moment choice. Will we agree with Christ, or will we agree with lies?”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“Our Savior is the Lover of our souls and is faithful to pour his love into our hearts, every day, in every moment we turn to him. He wants to show us his love. And when we are filled up, we can then go about our day, loving our people well—not out of an empty cistern, but out of a full one. Ready to listen. Ready to give. Ready to serve. Ready to encourage.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“Jesus went to a garden on the night of his betrayal. He went to the garden to pray, to cry out to the Lord, to be alone with God when no one else was looking. It’s where he met with his Father. And it’s where we meet with our Father too. How we tend our garden matters. What we fill our minds with, what we let our eyes see, what we listen to, the people we surround ourselves with, the people we go to or don’t go to when we’re struggling; it all matters. Vulnerability with safe people matters. Being open and honest with those we trust is worth the hard work. It’s worth it to let them see our dark spots so we can let the light in. Only we know the state of our hearts. Only we know what we hold back and what we let out. And only we can make the decision to cultivate our hearts so that they thrive and flourish.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“Music brings praise during the hardships of life—and even joy in the midst of the mundane.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“Getting away and asking ourselves who we want to become, who we want our families to become, and then backtracking and choosing one little step that is doable, to implement. One little step at a time. If you want to be a woman who loves Jesus and trusts him, then you need to spend time with him. Open his Word and read, one verse at a time. One prayer at a time. If you want to be a mom who is present with her kids, then you may need to put your phone in the cabinet for an hour from 3 to 4 p.m. each day. If you want to have intentional time together as a family, you might spend snack time each afternoon reading a story with your kids. If you want to be a family who uplifts one another and cheers one another on, you might go around the dinner table one night a week and each of you say one thing you love about a certain family member. If you want to be a runner, you don’t sign up for a marathon tomorrow, but you do need to put some running shoes on and get outside and start running. Doesn’t have to be every day. Doesn’t have to be five miles at a time. It could be ten minutes twice a week, but that makes you a runner. You don’t have to aim for perfection, or 100 percent even. We’re not looking for A+’s. We’re simply learning to be the people we want to be—living in the 80 percent rule. Rhythms over goals. Intentionality over reacting. Being present over distraction. Grace over legalism.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“Even so, some days, no matter how hard I fight, I get bullied into believing I’m not enough; that I’m constantly coming up short. I often feel inadequate, overwhelmed.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“He promises that he is always with me and that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (see Phil. 4:13). It may be hard, but God promises to use trials to build my character and hope, and hope never disappoints in Jesus. I might fail, but God’s power is made perfect in my weakness.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“But mark this: Just because we may not see our miracle doesn’t mean there is no miracle. Perhaps our miracle looks a lot different from what we expected. Or perhaps the miracle isn’t in the gift, but rather in the process of who we are becoming while we wait on him. The process of finding our satisfaction in him as our greatest longing is fulfilled.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“our hearts are like gardens. We must be careful to take care of them, and to protect what and who enters in.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“We are not what we do; we are the beloved of God, and as such, he longs to be with us. God longs for our hearts, not our works. Our works are simply an overflow of what he’s doing in and through us. Yes, we are commanded to do good works and be on a mission, but that can be done only if we sit with him first. Be with him. Rest here for a while. We are not slaves who are required to constantly produce, but we are his beloved children who are loved and cherished and enjoyed. From that position then, we go out and live on mission out of celebration of what he’s done and who he says we are.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“I want to be a woman of faith, not a woman of fear. I want to be defined for my faith, and I want to live in faith. Because that’s who I am in Christ. Given the victory to be faithful in the hard things, in the battles, and to have faith in the One who holds the whole world in his hands and holds my frail, trembling heart too.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“As the apostle John reminds us, “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith” (1 John 5:4); while Timothy says, “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (2 Tim. 1:7). I am not a fearful person. I am God’s daughter and have been given the Spirit of power, love, and a sound mind. I can choose to fight the lies, the thoughts that leave me spiraling, the worries of the unknown or “what-ifs” with his truth. I can stop the downward spiral of my thinking to focus on what he says about his character, his works, and me.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“But as the days progressed, I realized God was meeting me right where I was. That’s the beauty of him. He doesn’t expect us to do it. He does it. He is the Healer. He is the Rescuer. We simply have to cry out to him. Turn to him; be open to him. Ask for help. Pour out our hearts of doubt and hurt and confusion. And he comes. Always. In his own unique way, for our own unique soul. He knows what we need, when we need it. He knew the exact time to reveal my brokenness and trauma. He spoke to me through a forgotten journal, a new verse, a song that comforted me in that season of grief.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“I love watching you be you. I love watching you discover and grow and learn. I love seeing you do it messily and poorly, but still doing it because you know it’s the right thing or the good thing. I love seeing you seek me; I love seeing you serve your family; I love seeing you teach your kids and laugh with them and read them books and blow bubbles with them. I love watching you kiss your husband and sing an (off-key) hymn to me. I love you being you, not because of anything you do, but because you are mine. I love seeing you bloom into your true self.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“You. Are. Enough. Because God is enough in you. More than enough. This world needs you. We need the beauty that you bring to this earth in your own original way. Give thanks for the person God created her to be, and then give thanks for the person he has made you to be. And if you aren’t sure who that is, ask. Ask him to show you your gifts, the beauty that you bring to the world, the passions set within you. Ask him how to see your life—your personality, energy level, passions, physical blessings, responsibilities, knowledge, creativity—through his eyes. Let yourself bloom and flourish in his love and care for you. Bloom into your best self. Let’s be women who are rooted and secure in who we are. And then we can cheer others on to do the same.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“The wedding ring miracle was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We will get to witness some of those, but most of our lives are made up of the small, everyday miracles. Answered prayers, yes, but also the miracle of a tomato that grows in our garden, the miracle of our kids laughing together, of a child learning a new concept, of connecting with our husbands; the miracle of feeling known through a conversation with a friend, of the comfort of a hug, the encouragement of a handwritten note, air-conditioning! If we choose to see life through the lens of faith and thankfulness, we will see the everyday miracles.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“God created the world with his words. He spoke, and it came to be! We are not God, but our words matter. Our words shape and form others, and ourselves, for good or bad. One sentence that someone speaks to you can either deeply wound you and take you off course, or build you up and give you wings to fly.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“We have to fight these thoughts of comparison. Those thoughts that seem to taunt us regarding who we aren’t and who we should be. Or who we wish we were. Instead, we need to ask God who we are in him, to see the good gifts that he has given each one of us, to see the story that he is writing for us, and to step into it. We need to face our realities head-on, link arms with other women to help fight the good fight, and become our best selves. That may mean unfollowing someone, or deleting an app, or turning off our phones for an hour, a day, a season. We have to be vigilant in guarding our thoughts and eyes so that we can have victory in the battle.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are

“His love is better than life. We don’t have to do anything to earn it; we simply can grab a pink floatie and slowly drift on down his river of love. Resting. Enjoying. Soaking it in. Letting his love move in and through us to accomplish his two greatest commands—to love him with all our heart, and to love others as ourselves.”
― Alyssa Bethke, Satisfied: Finding Hope, Joy, and Contentment Right Where You Are