Beautiful Scars: A Conversation with Lauran Bethell, Part Four

This week on the Allender Center Podcast, we bring you the conclusion of Beautiful Scars, Dr. Dan Allender’s four-part conversation with Lauran Bethell, Coordinator and Leadership Team Chair for the International Christian Alliance on Prostitution (ICAP). Lauren and Dan pick up their conversation right where they left off, so check out Parts One, Two, and Three if you missed them.

As Dan and Lauran continue responding to audience questions, they are asked about how to foster sustainability and longevity in difficult work, like engaging the realities of sexual abuse and human trafficking. Lauran shares that if we get into this work because it makes us feel good and gives us something to talk about with our friends, we will not sustain it. That’s also the case when our work becomes our identity, which has been her experience in the past.

Lauran : “Our identity always has to be, I am the beloved son or daughter of God.”

Dan: “If you hear what Lauran’s saying, you really can’t take yourself too seriously.”

Dan shares about how, even in work that can be brutal and heartbreaking, he hopes it does not become a burden. It is the upside-down nature of God’s kingdom that a calling into brokenness and trauma can still be marked by invitation, beauty, and play. He and Lauran also talk about living with open hands, believing that God will clarify our calling when we are not trying to make one for ourselves.

Dan: “Bind your heart to beautiful people.”

Another question prompts Dan to reflect on the tricky nature of sharing painful stories that involve other people in our lives. For Dan, this means that any story he writes or shares publicly has been read by the people involved, both to check for accuracy and to move toward honor in the sharing of the story.

Dan: “You don’t need permission, you need honor. If you’re going to be sharing stories in public, you need to have addressed those stories in private.”