Dan and Becky Allender: Hiding No More, Part Two

This week on the podcast, Dan and Becky Allender continue their conversation about Becky’s new book, Hidden in Plain Sight: One Woman’s Search for Identity, Intimacy, and Calling. Last week they talked about the courage to step out of the shadows and risk sharing our stories with the world. The question then becomes: out of hiding, and into what? How do know what God is calling us into?

Becky reflects on her own sense of calling and how it has been uncovered, clarified, and amplified over time. She talks about the exciting—and terrifying, at times—movement into more public writing and speaking, a reflection of the call to share her story in a way that invites others into healing.

Becky: “I am meant to bring tenderness, but also fierceness, to help others be tender to their own story.”

Becky shares vulnerably about choosing to follow her calling in bold new ways at a later age, when many others choose to slow down and quiet down. “This feels like an era when many people are allowing their lives to get smaller,” says Dan. “You are choosing a very different course.”

I am meant to bring tenderness, but also fierceness, to help others be tender to their own story.

Becky: “There is so much more I haven’t even tapped into yet. It’s not a conceited feeling, it’s just—I want to be used by Jesus, I want to live on behalf of others, I want to set other people on a course of freedom and goodness.”

As individuals and as a couple, Dan and Becky are choosing to step into new terrain, asking bold questions about the realities of justice, oppression, and what restoration looks like in a broken, divided society. And, if the idea of coasting into retirement with pleasant diversions or routine tasks is not fulfilling to you either, they invite you to consider how your unique story and calling might also be used in the ongoing movement of the Kingdom of God.

Becky: “If I don’t start living differently, I’m going to miss out on the gifts that are in plain sight every day around me. Because all the way to the grave there’s going to be a list that needs checked off.”Dan: “I’ve got the best seat in town, and I happen to also be one of the great recipients of this growing presence of Jesus. So thank you, Becky.”