From Homeless & Hopeless to Healing & Purpose: Bethany Harger's Story - Latter-Day Lights

What if your most devastating life storms are actually clearing the path to your greater purpose?

From the outside, Bethany Harger was living the dream—temple marriage, young children, and a promising future. But behind closed doors, crippling depression left her bedridden while her husband battled addiction.

After two divorces, custody battles across state lines, and periods of homelessness, Bethany found herself sleeping on her mother-in-law’s floor—while divorcing her son.

Then, a series of divine coincidences began to unfold—including the unexpected fulfillment of a written vision she’d created years earlier, describing the kind of loving relationship she longed for.

Today, Bethany has not only found that love, but also a renewed sense of purpose. She's now co-founding The Breakthrough Foundation with Leslie Householder to help others transform their own storms into purpose.

This episode offers a powerful reminder that when you feel most broken, you might actually be breaking through to something far greater than you ever imagined.

*** Please SHARE Bethany's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***

To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/Djgy31vx9Es

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The Breakthrough Foundation can be found on Facebook (@thebreakthroughfoundation) and Instagram (@breakthrough_found)

Donations to The Breakthrough Foundation can be made through Venmo here: https://www.venmo.com/u/breakthrough24

Applications to be a participant in the The Breakthrough Foundation can be submitted here: https://forms.gle/jYTZCBCrh98PwmW1A

The new website for The Breakthrough Foundation is www.thebreakthroughfoundation.org

For those interested in coaching with Bethany or reading her blog can go to www.wayfindermentoring.com.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Bethany's Journey
• 4:14 Early Marriage and Depression Struggles
• 12:11 Divorce and Return to the Midwest
• 16:55 Discovering Rare Faith and Life Principles
• 32:54 Homelessness and Custody Battles
• 43:03 Finding Peace Through Divine Intervention
• 55:36 Unexpected Love and Divine Timing
• 1:08:19 Marriage and Healing Past Traumas
• 1:21:47 The Breakthrough Foundation Vision

Transcript

Scott Brandley: 0:06

Hey everyone, I'm Scott Brandley.

Alisha Coakley: 0:08

And I'm Alisha Coakley. Every member of the church has a story to share, one that can instill faith, invite growth and inspire others.

Scott Brandley: 0:16

On today's episode we're going to hear how divorce, custody battles and even homelessness taught one woman how to turn life's storms into her purpose. Welcome to Latter-day Lights. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Latter-day Lights. We're so glad you're here with us today. We're really excited to introduce our special guest, bethany Harger, to the show. Bethany, welcome.

Bethany Harger: 0:49

Hi thanks.

Alisha Coakley: 0:51

Yeah, thanks for reaching out to us. We always love when we don't have to go track people down. It's always like a nice one less thing that we have to do, so we really appreciate it.

Scott Brandley: 1:03

How did you find the show Bethany?

Bethany Harger: 1:06

thing that we have to do, so we really appreciate it. How did you find the show, bethany? I saw a post that Alicia had on Facebook, and it came up just as I had been receiving some promptings that it was time to start speaking and being a little bit more vocal about my story I needed. There was a time that I needed to hide the story, and then there was which is part of what you'll hear today and then about a year, that I chose to hide from it, and so when I saw Alicia's post asking for stories of Latter-day Saints, I decided to reach out.

Alisha Coakley: 1:43

Awesome, that is really cool, and I'm excited because your story has so many different facets and avenues and I just feel like there's going to be so many different people that can resonate with different parts of your story. So I think it's going to be you know, it's just going to be a great episode, I just know it.

Bethany Harger: 2:05

Well, I hope so.

Alisha Coakley: 2:07

Yeah. So why don't you tell us before you start with your story and everything like that? Why don't you tell us just a little bit about yourself?

Bethany Harger: 2:16

Well, my name is Bethany and I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. I am the youngest of six children. Five of us are living. My mom had a full term stillborn about 18 months before me. I spent the majority of my life in in Phoenix. I lived overseas in Saudi Arabia for a couple of years with my parents when I was younger yeah, that was, that was a really fun experience. And then I served a mission for my church. I went to Chicago and I served Spanish speaking and I left the Midwest. I absolutely loved my mission and I said I would never, ever live in the Midwest again because of the cold and the weather and the humidity and all the things.

Bethany Harger: 3:09

I was born in the church from. Both parents, come from pioneer heritage, went through a series of life storms that ultimately brought me back to the Midwest and I now live in Southwestern Iowa and just a little small town to the Midwest and I now live in Southwestern Iowa and just a little small town.

Alisha Coakley: 3:32

Wow, that's really cool. Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the Midwest. Well, I guess I'm not a fan of humidity. That's probably just more accurate. So anything that falls into that humidity range I'm not a fan. I don't like to sweat.

Bethany Harger: 3:43

I agree.

Alisha Coakley: 3:43

For any reason, like to sweat, I agree. For any reason. I don't like being uncomfortable, yeah. So I don't know if I can make it back there, but I guess, if the Lord calls me really loudly, like, really loudly, like with a megaphone, then maybe I'll do it.

Bethany Harger: 4:00

This was pretty loud and unmistakable, so it's ended up being a huge, a huge blessing in my life.

Alisha Coakley: 4:10

Awesome. Well, we're excited to hear more about that, so we'll just go ahead and turn the time over to you. Why don't you tell us where your story begins?

Bethany Harger: 4:22

My story kind of begins when I was in my early 20s and I returned home from my mission. I had gone a little bit later because I was determined I was just going to get married. I didn't want to serve a mission, and that didn't happen. I heard the spirit tell me that I would get married after I served a mission. So I decided to go ahead and go so that I could come home and get married.

Scott Brandley: 4:44

I served a mission.

Bethany Harger: 4:45

So I decided to go ahead and go, so that I could come home and get married. That was all I ever really wanted was to be a wife and a mom, and that was. I felt like that was what I was called to do in this life, and it wasn't for me. That wasn't a cultural thing being raised in the church. It was what my heart desired. That was really what I wanted. So I got home from my mission and I met a return missionary and we were married in the temple and unexpectedly, I got pregnant right away. So just before our first anniversary, I had our first child. He's my only son, and a year after that 13, in fact, 13 months of the day I had my second, which was my little girl and my first girl.

Bethany Harger: 5:30

And then, um, when she was four months old, my mom passed away. And at the time that my mom passed away uh, it's probably when my story really began I started struggling pretty severely with depression I shouldn't say started. The depression and anxiety that I had had just became worse. It wasn't something that was really looked at when I was a child, because they didn't know. I can look back at my childhood and it's very clear what was going on with me, but it wasn't really known. My husband at the time took my mom's death pretty hard. They were very close. He was loved by everybody in my family. He was super charming and charismatic and between the struggles that he had, which were a lot of addictions, um, he struggled with multiple addictions and eventually started. He went back to things that happened before his mission. Um, in addition to alcohol, uh, prescription pain pills, uh. Later, which was after we divorced, it became smoking marijuana, which was for medicinal purposes, but became it was constant. I it's hard to justify constant it was. There was really no breaks from the stories that I would hear from my children.

Bethany Harger: 7:02

So before our divorce I was I don't even think, I can't even say that I was surviving. You know we talk about surviving, thriving. I was existing, my heart beat and I was breathing and that was the extent I spent. The majority of my time was spent in bed. I would get up to go to work, which I work nights, and then I would just come home and go back to bed. I would get up to go to work, which I worked nights, and then I would just come home and go back to bed.

Bethany Harger: 7:26

By this point, I had had my third child, which was my second daughter, and she grew up. Her first few years were spent next to me in bed watching cartoons. That was the extent of what I felt I could give to my family, and at the time I prayed regularly that they would know that I loved them. That was I can't say, in any real sense of the term, that I was a good mom at the time. I just wasn't. I didn't have the tools and resources that I needed to be the mom that I had always dreamed of being.

Bethany Harger: 8:08

So, by by 2013, I was divorced from my first husband and then I went through single parenthood with three young children. I had a I think it was 11, and 6 at the time, or 10, 11, and 6. They were little and so thrown back into the workforce. I had been working, but now I was working solely for my, you know, with just by myself, and before I had worked at night so that I could still be home during the day, although that wasn't super effective because I still wasn't a very. You know, I wasn't productive during the day, although that wasn't super effective because I still wasn't a very, you know, I wasn't productive during the day.

Bethany Harger: 8:48

So a couple of years later, I ended up meeting somebody else and I was remarried in 2015. And I was 40 at the time and I became pregnant. Wow, which was exciting. We wanted to have a baby. Wow, which was exciting. We wanted to have a baby. I had been told I couldn't have any more children after my third. I'd had multiple miscarriages over the years. And so here I was, 40 and newly married and pregnant, and my second husband had. He was on the autism spectrum and had some mental health struggles, but not the severity that I knew when we got married.

Bethany Harger: 9:29

And the first year of our marriage was pretty fantastic. So I was pregnant. It was fantastic in the sense of our relationship was pretty great. He did an amazing job taking care of me I had. There were so many struggles during the pregnancy, um, because of his mental health and the disability that went along with it. I knew that I, um, I was going to be the primary breadwinner and I was okay with that because he was. He was really so good to me.

Bethany Harger: 10:00

So I had started college, um, and during the time that I was pregnant, all three of my older kids got walking pneumonia to some extent. They were so sick. I was horribly sick. 21 weeks pregnant, I had an emergency abdominal surgery. My gallbladder was almost to the point of rupturing. Nobody was really looking at my gallbladder by know. By the time I was in surgery, my surgeon said haven't you been sick? And I'm like, yeah, I'm pregnant. They just kept giving me medications for nausea, like so, um, 21 weeks along, and I had, uh, an abdominal, an emergency abdominal surgery, which she survived, and, um, but I continued to be really sick. I went into preterm labor at 31 weeks. I didn't know that you could be in labor for eight weeks, but I was in labor for eight weeks, in and out of the hospital. Um, ultimately she came at 39 weeks and she was healthy and she did great. Uh, I Two of the children of my older kids were suffering pretty significantly from mental health struggles and then my husband's mental health began declining.

Bethany Harger: 11:15

But because he had been so good to me in the beginning, I could see who he really was and so it kind of snuck up on me slowly and then would get it progressively got worse. So in the summer of 2019, we had come back to Iowa. So my husband is from Iowa and we had come back for his 25th high school graduation the reunion, fifth high school graduation, the reunion and he was not coming back home with me. We were separating to try and get my bearings, but I was really really close. I am still really close to his mom. She was one of my biggest advocates and best friends and I ended up having a mental breakdown.

Bethany Harger: 12:01

I just stayed here for I stayed in Iowa for a month and this is I was living in Phoenix or the East Valley, in Chandler, metropolitan Phoenix. I was living there, stayed in Iowa for a month. That meant leaving my three-year-old with my newly 18-year-old daughter in charge, and it was a lot. But my kids just knew that I needed it and so they rallied around at home and made so. I had a 19, 18 and 12 year old at the time, or 13. Newly, newly adult children, you know, plus the preteen and then the baby newly adult children, you know, plus the preteen and then the baby.

Bethany Harger: 12:51

So I stayed in Iowa for about a month and then I returned home and I was introduced to some, to a friend. She wasn't a friend at the time, but I was introduced to this woman and she introduced me to what's called the Fusion U program, which was a nonprofit organization in the East Valley in Arizona that offered services that had like coaching and mental wellness.

Bethany Harger: 13:10

They did a lot of creative processing and it was with the idea that if you can empower a woman, you empower communities, and so this was a six month program that I went through that kind of opened my mind to the power of our thoughts and it's I started to feel more empowered within my circumstances, and this girl, shawnee, that has since become one of my closest friends. She encouraged me to listen to the rare faith podcasts, which rare faith is ultimately where Alicia and I connected.

Alisha Coakley: 13:46

Yes.

Bethany Harger: 13:48

And so I just I started listening to this podcast and I just was absorbing it, Like it was this language that my soul knew, but I had forgotten and I love that description of it.

Alisha Coakley: 14:00

I will a hundred percent vouch. That is exactly the way that I feel. Yeah, it's, that's awesome. Sorry to interrupt, so go ahead.

Bethany Harger: 14:09

Oh, no, it is. It was. It truly was like this language that I feel like my spirit had forgotten, and as soon as it was introduced to it, it just, it couldn't get enough. Um, and it correlated with my beliefs. I didn't feel like there was anything outside of what I already believed and in fact, it was helping me in my testimony of what I believed in.

Bethany Harger: 14:32

And so, during this time, I graduated magna cum laude, when I was 44 and had been through so many challenges. So having got through school in four years was a huge feat in itself, and I felt like my whole entire world was finally opening, like it was just opening up for me, as I was in my first internship. But COVID shut that world down. It didn't just shut it down for me, it shut it down for everybody. So, literally, the world was shut down and that world that I felt like I was finally figuring out was gone and my internship closed because they didn't really need a remote intern. And so here I am. I had no clue. I had no clue where I was going or what I was supposed to do, and at the time I was um. So if you're familiar with Phoenix, arizona, it's hot and um, because of how sick I was when I was pregnant and all that I was trying to navigate.

Bethany Harger: 15:40

We had moved in with my sister when I was when I was still pregnant with my littlest and so at this time, by the time I graduated, we had converted the garage to like a room. So I was living in a garage with my husband and then the kids were in the main part of the house with my sister and we went back and forth, but it was still a garage, like our bedroom, had the garage door over opener, above my bed. It just we made do, but it's what I needed to do to get through school and it felt like it was worth that sacrifice. And so at this point, I'm like there's no point. Everything that I just did was no point, because I don't even know what I'm going to do at this point with my degree, because I was now 45 years old, trying to enter a new career field in the middle of a pandemic, and it just was not the best recipe for what I wanted for my family. But I had continued listening to Leslie Householder's work, reading her books, holding on to the things that I was learning and in May of 2020, I attended my first Genius Bootcamp, which is a three-day workshop that she facilitates, and all I wanted was to not live in this garage anymore. I just wanted my own place and a job and I wanted to take care of my family. I started applying what I had learned in Genius Bootcamp and I just did one principle after another.

Bethany Harger: 17:17

And in the summer of 2020 is when I moved across the country to Iowa and there's a whole story behind that, but it would just make this long, but it was a God thing that said, this is where I needed to be. I truly felt that by living close to my mother-in-law, that it would heal my marriage and help us get back to where we had been. And so I moved from Arizona to Iowa in the middle of this pandemic, with no resources, no job prospects, and I was buying a house, like I was under contract in a house. So I felt like I figured this out, like I can live these rare faith principles and I can use faith and achieve my dreams. I felt like I was on top of the world. But the very first night we were exhausted. Three days of traveling and I go to put my daughter my littlest she was four by this time I go to put her in the bath and there is no water running to the bathtub.

Bethany Harger: 18:18

So, the only other thing that we had was a shower upstairs which it's not easy to shower a four-year-old shower upstairs, which it's not easy to shower a four-year-old, and that led to again I'm giving cliff notes of kind of each thing along the way but between the water issues there was housing issues. The contract that I was under ended up being an illegal contract because the deed to the house was left and it was stuck in a bankruptcy. We couldn't close on the house anyway. So I thought, oh, and in the middle of this my husband had just, he was completely um, the emotional and verbal abuse had become so extensive that I could no longer keep him in the home, and so we we separated permanently.

Bethany Harger: 19:05

At that point, um and his I, his mom, came and picked him up and I want to emphasize that, whereas my first divorce, there was choices made that he made choices that led to what happened and I did too, not that he was the only one at fault, but there was actual, you know, just choices made from a clear mind. In my second marriage he has severe mental health issues, and so I am so grateful, because I had that year with him, that I saw who this man was when the mental health wasn't out of control, and that's actually important as I go down into what happened with the custody dispute. So my littlest was four at the time and my 14-year-old had come to Iowa. My older two, my oldest two kids were living on their own at this point college and they were adults and doing the young adult thing on their own.

Bethany Harger: 20:09

So ultimately we had to leave this house that I was in. So now I was single again. I was still struggling with jobs. I was doing contract work and I was self-employed. So there was some stuff, but it was still just a really hard time and we ended up moving into another home in a rental in a little town called Avoca, and during this time we were preparing my oldest daughter for her mission, so she had come to stay with us. We moved her out of college. She came to stay with us before her mission, but we started having another set of plumbing issues. It got to the point that we had the sewer was leaking into the walls, the ceiling caved in.

Bethany Harger: 20:51

In my five-year-old's room I've got my daughter MTCing upstairs and there's black molds downstairs and the advice was that I needed to get my children out before the cold hit because it wasn't safe to live there any longer. Wow, it was about this time that my oldest tried to take his life. He was in Georgia. I was also learning of the significant mental health struggles of my 14-year-old. I couldn't take care of both. So my ex-husband and his new wife drove to Georgia and got my oldest out of the hospital and drove him back to Arizona. While I'm trying to get my one daughter on a mission, we need to leave the house that we were in. Daughter on a mission, we need to leave the house that we were in and the severity of what we were dealing with with my 14 year old felt more than I could really more than I could do.

Bethany Harger: 21:56

I I desperately needed to feel some peace, and so I called up my Relief Society president who by this time was a really close friend of mine and I asked her if I could come for her husband to give me a blessing. And so I went over there one evening and I told him. I said I just need to find some peace, I need something to work out. And so, as he gave me this blessing, he did not tell me what I wanted to hear. And he said that the peace I was looking for was not going to come and that I needed to learn to find the peace in within and develop that. How, oh my gosh. And when he ended the prayer, it was just silence. And I looked at him and I said that's not what I wanted to hear. And he was tear filled eyes. He says that's not what I wanted to say. So I left that night.

Bethany Harger: 22:59

Um, I can't say that I left feeling better. In fact, it felt really heavy, because I'm like how do I I don't know how to find peace? Um, we didn't have there was no more housing prospects. We didn't know what we were going to do. I mean, it wasn't even like there was something there that I couldn't afford. There was just nothing. And my 14 year old had become so integrated in our youth group here in in Iowa, our young women's group. She threatened me to not move back. She did not want to go back to Arizona, which was shocking that that's why we were staying was this girl that had become just enmeshed within our young woman's group, and so the decision for her sake was to stay, and I was trusting that my son in Arizona was going to get what he needed. And we were in contact.

Bethany Harger: 23:57

You know, I was in contact with him through the time, but without anywhere to go. We had to get out of this house. My 14-year-old ended up going to stay with a young woman's president Um, but without anywhere to go, and we had to get out of this house. Uh, my 14 year old ended up going to stay with a young woman's president. I actually can't remember if she had been released yet or not, but she had been a young woman's president earlier and she was good friends with them.

Bethany Harger: 24:16

Because I had to move in with my mother-in-law with my little, and she has this little 900 square foot house. There was actually the basement has square footage also, but my brother-in-law lived there, and so upstairs there was two bedrooms, one bath, just a little really small home, and my six-year-old and I began sharing. We just shared a twin size bed in the corner of the sewing room and we really thought it was going to be just a few weeks, it was just going to be really temporary. It ended up being eight months and eventually my 14-year-old came to live with us and so in the little tiny corner of this room I shared bunk beds with. My 16-year-old was on top and myself and the six-year-old were on the bottom, and it was really hard, but there were so many nights that I would never give up the conversations that were had. I mean, who gets to sit under your 16-year-old and laugh in the middle of the night while?

Bethany Harger: 25:19

trying to shush so that the little one doesn't get woke up by this point. I had made the decision to file for divorce, so I'm living with my mother-in-law while divorcing her son, and you know it, always what she and I like to talk about is that it's weird, that it's not weird. So there was never a single argument, there was never a single altercation. How many people can stay that long? I mean, it's hard for a lot of people to go to dinner with a mother-in-law, let alone with them.

Bethany Harger: 26:01

And she was amazing. There were times that we all kind of retreated to our own little corners to avoid the contention, but it was an amazing time. We have such amazing memories. So now I'm in the middle of my second divorce and I am the girl that was going to grow up and I was going to get married in the temple and I was going to be a stay-at-home mom and that was my dream and that was all shattered. It was just completely shattered.

Bethany Harger: 26:31

And alongside this, I had become a rare faith facilitator and so I get to go and now I'm teaching genius boot camps and I'm telling people about how you can use these principles to reach your dreams and to fulfill your dreams and you can draw closer to your heavenly father. And then I would shut those zoom rooms down and I would just go to bed because what was like I felt like the biggest fraud. I'm sitting here telling people. I either felt like a fraud or I felt really angry, like why do I have to teach this to other people? And I felt like I needed to keep teaching it. Like it was this I was just called.

Bethany Harger: 27:13

I couldn't let it go, and yet my family was suffering like suffering. But I decided that I was going to write a relationship vision, and so I at this point I was, I was filing for divorce and I wanted I post dated it cause it's some. It's just a principle that we teach within rare faith, and I put it far enough out that it would feel believable, but not so far out that it wouldn't be achievable, like I just felt, like I would never get there. And so it was about the fall of 2021. And I wrote the date at the top July 31st 2023.

Bethany Harger: 27:59

I am so happy and grateful to be in a healthy marriage relationship. And then I went on. It was, you know, about two pages long, and I wrote everything that I just would really love to experience in every aspect of a marriage and in every aspect of a relationship, and it was really particular to make sure that I wrote it in a way that would allow my husband to step into that space if he chose to be. So I wasn't trying to reject him, but I really wanted to be in a healthy marriage. The divorce continued and then, out of left field, my ex-husband in Arizona decided to file for custody and have my 16-year-old removed from me, and so for all of 2022, I was going through a custody dispute in two states with two men, and I needed to hire two different attorneys. For part of that time, I was also homeless. Our joke is that we were homeless, but not roofless.

Bethany Harger: 29:02

We had a roof over our head, but we didn't have a place of our own and I went through a barrage of character attacks. I would need to sit in this virtual courtroom. Because I was able to do it, Thankfully for COVID. That was. One of the good things with COVID is how much was able to go virtual, so I didn't have to keep flying back to Arizona. But my daughter had made it very, very clear that if she had to live with her dad, she would end her life, and so it wasn't like I was just fighting for custody. I was trying to keep her alive. Um, I had, when I say that, this blessing of living in Iowa. I've never been enveloped by the kind of love that my community and my ward family provided. Here the resources continue to show up. Um, I've really never witnessed anything like it. It's one thing when you experience that from your family, because I feel like your family has to right.

Bethany Harger: 30:12

That's what they do but when it's just people that see your potential and nothing else, because there wasn't anything else to see at that time except potential, I experienced God's love in an entirely different way, and there was a day that my daughter and I had got into town from the town that we were living in. We had to go into the city to do some shopping, and I remember feeling like what is the point of like everything was falling apart, like the whole world was just falling down around me, and while we had been driving, we noticed that someone had set fires. And so it was. This was maybe February ish, so it was really dry outside. It had it had been a really, um, cold, dry winter, and so it was really dry outside. It had it had been a really cold, dry winter, and so it was just stark and brown. And then I had I, on my own, had to go back into the city probably a month later, and then we had had our first rain for spring. And as I was driving home, I noticed that these patches that had previously been black were this lush, thriving green, and it was so stark right up next to the brown dead grass that hadn't been affected by the fire. And I remember thinking I wonder if the Lord is just clearing my path like this controlled burn, so to speak, so that growth could happen quicker than if. If that didn't happen and I kind of held on to that one little thought and I I wrote about it and took a picture, because it was a pretty amazing picture. Um, I ended up moving.

Bethany Harger: 31:58

We finally moved out into, uh, another little tiny town and it was not the best house, it was kind of it just really wasn't, it was gross, but it was ours and we finally, like we were on our own and I had told I had written in the process, I had written a goal statement that I needed to have, like I needed to have my own place by July 1st. I needed to have something figured out by July 1st. And I remember on June 30th so the night before July 1st, I was just crying with a friend and I'm like I can't do this anymore, and she said, bethany, it's not July 1st and I said it's June 30th. And I said it's June 30th, it's like 6 pm and she said I know it's not July 1st and in rare faith we have this thing. It's from the books we say it's not Tuesday yet, so she was using that against me because it was not July 1st. Well, july 1st came and something popped up and I signed a lease on July 1st and we were able to have yeah.

Alisha Coakley: 33:11

Wow.

Bethany Harger: 33:13

She loves to use this. The July 1st incident is what you know. We like to laugh about that. So we did. We had our own place and it wasn't the greatest, but it was ours and we just were overjoyed.

Bethany Harger: 33:28

My divorce finalized with my five-year-old or six she was six by this time and I was given full legal and physical custody and my ex-husband got needed supervised visits and this was nothing short of miraculous. And this was nothing short of miraculous. I've been told by my attorney, other attorneys that I've met and parents that they do not give full custody here. It's just unheard of, honestly, short of pedophilia involved, they don't give full custody, even if abuse is involved. And to have received this, like I said, it was miraculous because we never had DCFS involvement. This this came without ever having to put my little through the trauma that would have had to have happened in order to get this kind of custody, and so it was one of those things that popped up. That was this huge miracle, um, but I was still involved in the custody dispute in with my ex-husband in Arizona, um, so in February February of 2023, we had, um a mental health incident and my daughter was hospitalized, and when I got her out of the hospital, I just needed a break. So this friend that I'm talking about July 1st, she said it's not July 1st, she lives in Missouri. And she said just come, like, just get away and come here. And so I had made all of the arrangements my little was going to go stay with grandma and my teenager and I were going down to Missouri for to stay for about a week. But it got postponed by about a week because I went home, told my daughter, let's go for a walk. We went on a walk and I slipped on ice and got a concussion. It was this little tiny patch of ice and my feet went up and I don't hardly remember except that I I mean, that's the point of a concussion you don't have a lot of the memory.

Bethany Harger: 35:42

So we did ultimately end up getting to, we got to Missouri and when we were going to church with her I just kept feeling like I needed to ask for a blessing, which felt weird because her husband's not a member and so I don't know anybody here. But I finally said you know what, jimmy, I think that I need a blessing. So it happened to be when we were at church that the there was a high councilman that was speaking in her ward that day is the same one that that taught her temple prep classes. And she says that's the one. And so he gave me a blessing and I don't remember me a blessing and I don't remember. All he knew about me was that I was. I was a single mom who was struggling and just needed some time away. That was the extent of what he knew about my story, and I should back up just a little bit.

Bethany Harger: 36:38

Once my, once my divorce was finalized, I had been separated by that point for about two years, so it wasn't, and I had been working on myself, I'd been working on my emotional healing, and so it wasn't like it was all new, it was just the paperwork. At that end, and man, one of my friends in my ward was all over it. She had actually created LDS single mingles. It's a Marco Polo, but she was the founder of it. Now, at this point, she had let go of it because she was remarried. But she's like Bethany, we got to get you hooked up, we got to get.

Bethany Harger: 37:12

And I said, no, I'm done, like I'm done with men. I just I can't. I mean, I just gone through it. I'm still in the middle of this character attack with one I'd gone through with the first one I said I'm done, I don't, I can't. So now I'm in Missouri and I asked for this blessing.

Bethany Harger: 37:30

And in the middle of his blessing he kind of paused and I knew that he was being guided by the spirit because there were words that he said that I had written in my journal two days before, sitting on the bed in my friend's house. I was journaling and so I knew that he wasn't just saying words like. There's no way that he could have known that those words came from inside of me two days before. And so he paused and he told me. He said the Lord does not want me to give up on all my dreams of marriage and that everything I had been wanting was on its way and that everything I had been wanting was on its way. And it was so shocking the way that he because it really wasn't the direction of the blessing, and so he paused he says this piece and then he goes right back to what he was before. And I was so shocked. I'm sitting in there and I opened my eyes because, even though we're in the middle of the blessing and I look in front of me and my daughter and my friend have these huge eyes like, oh my gosh, she's going to lose it, she's going to leave the room. And then we all closed our eyes and he finished the blessing and we just loved our time there and then we went back home and that was it.

Bethany Harger: 38:41

But I kept feeling like I needed to listen to the blessing and kind of step back into the dating world and there's a lot of that backstory before the whole dating. But it's it. It shows how much I really just didn't want. I had lost. I had lost the hope of all those dreams. At this point I am, you know, late 40s and I've been alone for a long time. Even in my marriages I was just alone most of the time, even if we were laying in the same bed or sleeping in the same room. The loneliness was just consuming and I I just didn't want. I would rather have been lonely and alone than lonely in a marriage.

Alisha Coakley: 39:35

Yeah.

Bethany Harger: 39:35

It was. It was better that way.

Alisha Coakley: 39:37

Yeah.

Bethany Harger: 39:39

And so I really only stepped back into dating because of this blessing and I felt like I should at least stepped back into dating because of this blessing and I felt like I should, at least I should at least try. And I remember one time I was driving it was shortly after this. I was back home, but I was. I was so mad and I'm like no, heavenly Father, you don't get to tell me this. Like, you don't get to open this door to all my dreams. You're going to have to just put this guy in front of me. He's just going to have to show up in front of me. And that kind of happened.

Bethany Harger: 40:09

I just I made some poor choices when I got back into the dating world. I just, I mean, nothing was catastrophic. I just probably went on some dates I shouldn't have gone on with, men that I shouldn't have gone out with. But I had just felt like you know what I did the LDS men, and that didn't work out so good. So I don't care, like, if he's going to treat me with respect at this point, like I'll, I'll go out with anybody, but they, you know, as long as they can treat me with respect. Now, remember, I've got this vision that was kind of in the background. I had written it a year and a half before, or more than that before then. And then the end of May so the end of May 2023, I was supposed to be going to Arizona.

Bethany Harger: 41:01

I was going to trial with my ex-husband and I heard back from my attorney that the report from the court appointed advisor, which is a forensic psychologist that had been appointed by the judge to interview all of the parties. There was a lot of he said, she said, and so it's hard for a judge to discern. So they'll times, they'll put a forensic psychologist to kind of make some determinations. And that report came back the week before my trial and it corroborated everything that I had said. It said that it was about a 13-page report, but within that it suggested that the father received intervention and help and that he was unable to fully understand the severity of the mental health. And so I was planning to go to trial. It was a two day trial or an all day trial or an all day trial. It was going to be a long, a long trial. And I now the litigation was over, his attorney reached out to my my attorney and a settlement was reached by this point.

Bethany Harger: 42:18

My daughter was 17. She was less than a year before her 18th birthday, and so it was. And so it was. It was determined that all visits should stop and until if and when her mental health care team deemed it appropriate. We knew that that just wasn't going to happen before she was 18, and so I knew that I was finally free, like I just felt, like I could keep this little girl you know, she's not little, she's 17, but it Both litigations at that point were over. We just needed to sign the actual agreement that had been brought up.

Bethany Harger: 42:55

I had had a lot of conversations with God. I remembered this July 31st. I said I cannot hold on, I can't hold on to this dream, I can't hold on to this past July 31st. And I said I cannot hold on, I can't hold on to this dream, I can't hold on to this past July 31st. And the answer that I felt back was that's enough, like that was okay. And so, as a facilitator for rare faith, one of the things that we teach is called guided mindset mastery, which is have you done it, alicia? I'm doing it right now. Which?

Bethany Harger: 43:23

is have you done it, Alicia? I'm doing it right now. It's amazing.

Alisha Coakley: 43:27

So good, it is so good yeah.

Bethany Harger: 43:30

It is Now. The curriculum is written in a way that's to achieve financial goals, because that was Leslie and Trevin's pain point when it was written, but it can be applied to any goal. And so I was teaching a guided mindset mastery and I had decided that I had a very intentional goal and that was that by the end of the guided mindset mastery which happened to just be just before July that I would be in a healthy relationship, and I figured by this point it wouldn't have been a marriage relationship because I would need time to get to know the person and all of that was. It just felt like there wasn't enough time for that. But I would have been okay, I would have felt like the dream was realized if I was just in a healthy relationship that was moving towards marriage relationship. That was moving towards marriage, which is when this dating chaos. It was crazy. I didn't really date before my first marriage. He was the first person I dated and then I only dated a couple of people and then I married my second husband.

Bethany Harger: 44:47

So I wasn't like dater, like that wasn't a thing for me, and I was really self-conscious and um, so it was very odd for me to like like this speed dating. It was and I was just again, I was, finally, I was just done and I was, I felt, I just felt so lost and I was so angry. I call them dear father letters, where I just write these letters to my Heavenly Father and I feel like it's more productive for me than just prayer. I feel like it's just more personal and I receive the revelation better.

Bethany Harger: 45:20

But, this one was angry. It was a hate letter to God. Angry. It was a hate letter to God and I I'm so grateful to understand that he is a heavenly father. And how many times, how many times have you had the door slammed in your face with your teenager telling you that they hated you? Like it just happens, when you're a parent, you're going to have a kid at some point. Tell you that they hate you, and I feel like that's how he sees us when we're throwing our little temper tantrums. It's like I know, I know, like he can just he can take it.

Bethany Harger: 45:55

He can totally take it. So I wrote this whole hate letter and then I I burned it, cause I do these.

Bethany Harger: 46:02

I kind of combined that with the right and burn activity and I burned it. Because I do these, I kind of combined that with the right and burn activity and I burned it and I just sat there and I took this big breath and I heard the words enter my mind Even if you see me that way, will you still serve me? And I went to bed that night feeling so defeated Like I just I didn't want to do it anymore. But I was an ordinance worker and I had a shift the next morning. So I got up the next morning, um, actually I was not going to go to my shift the next morning cause I didn't have enough gas money. And I'm like see, I can't actually serve you because I don't have enough gas money.

Bethany Harger: 46:42

Like this little belligerent I'm such a belligerent child Sometimes. That was me growing up. You are a redhead, I mean. So this is actually not natural, but I I do carry the redhead gene. I have a redhead. My, my son is I. I hold it with pride. I think that I wear it well. That's actually a joke in our family.

Bethany Harger: 47:10

So I went to bed feeling like I'm not going to be able to go to my shift because there's not enough gas in my car and I received a message from my 17 year old upstairs that said hey, are you going to your shift tomorrow? I know you don't have gas, I have $17. So my daughter's last $17 was put into my car so that I could drive the hour to the temple and go serve in my shift. And the level. She's so sweet, she's such a good kid. But I was still like I wasn't feeling a lot of hope. But I was still like I I wasn't feeling a lot of hope. But for one of my rotations I was the. I was just at the front desk taking temple recommends Um, and so there tends to be a lot of like quiet time. You know, you kind of get the rush of people coming in.

Bethany Harger: 47:58

And so I pulled out the book of Mormon, decided to just open it and see if there was anything that the Lord wanted to say. So I just flip the flip. The scriptures open and my eyes land on the verse at the top of the page on the left-hand side, which was fourth Nephi, one 11. And it said and they were married and given in marriage and were blessed, according to the multitude of promises which the Lord had made unto him, unto them.

Bethany Harger: 48:29

And it was clear that was being spoken to me, but it just I'm like really, I said July 31st and we're pushing June, like I just I couldn't see. I mean, I could see that he was speaking to me but I couldn't see past where I was. But I was looking forward to going to Arizona because I got to visit friends and family and my kids couldn't wait. By this time I was so over like even the dating that I had pulled my name off of any of the profiles that there are and I was just done. And then I got an email from LDS Singles and I had never purchased that, I'd never paid for a subscription, and so it was odd that I got this email. Well, I didn't know at the time that if you remove the app from your phone, it doesn't delete your profile, it just removes the app. They can still send you the email notifications.

Bethany Harger: 49:34

So I get this email that says you know, I've received a message on my profile and you know, click here to see the message. So I was like okay. So I clicked the message, only for it to say please pay for a subscription for you to see your message. Like are you kidding me? I don't want the message. That bad, I didn't want it. I didn't care at this point. But then there's the curiosity thing and I'm like you know what? For a single month it's $49.99. And I felt the spirit say, just get this message, just get this message.

Scott Brandley: 50:15

Wow.

Bethany Harger: 50:16

And I was like well, I can't because I have $47 in my bank account. Oh my gosh, and so I was like, see, I can't follow it anyway, and I clicked it and it went through. The charge didn't show up on my card for two weeks. It was an in-app purchase. I don't know why it took two weeks, but it said thank you for your purchase.

Bethany Harger: 50:40

And I saw this message and this, this guy, his name Matt, and he lived in Cedar Rapids, which is about three and a half hours from where I live. The message was very clear that he had read my profile and was speaking to what I had written. So I sent a message back that night this is a Wednesday and the next day he started messaging me through the app and I was at a softball game for my for my then seven year old, and we just kept talking and I couldn't um, I couldn't talk. My little didn't know that I went on dates. My youngest. She didn't know if I went on dates, she didn't know if I was ever talking to him in because she really wanted a stepdad, like she was determined that she was getting a stepdad that summer and I told her I said, honey, that's not how it works. But she says well, I need it this summer, like I need my stepdad this summer. I'm like a dream coach. How am I supposed to?

Scott Brandley: 51:56

like. I just want to like her dreams.

Bethany Harger: 51:56

How do I shatter her dreams? Yeah, so I told her. I said you know what you? Just you write all the things that you want to feel with a stepdad. And so she wrote it's so cute she has. She sat and wrote like her little vision board. She wanted him to hug, like Paul, which is a friend at church, and she wanted, she needed him to be grateful and she wanted him to love her mom. And she had this pinned above her desk, um, and I couldn't tell her that was never going to happen because that would shatter her dreams. But in my mind I'm like that's never going to happen and she's going to have to just learn the hard way. Because how do you teach her you can't use the laws of thought on somebody else Like it just it was more than a seven year old process, so she just left it there.

Bethany Harger: 52:45

So I started talking to this this guy on, we're just messaging through the app, um, and he asked to call me. Or maybe I said to call him to call me, I don't know. I'm sure he would have his own version of the whole story. But, um, when Riley went to bed, uh, we started talking. We talked late into that night and I told him I couldn't talk. Um, it wasn't actually late that night. I told him that I needed to get off cause it was my daughter's, my older daughter's birthday. She was home from her mission by now and living in Provo, and so when she called, we got off the phone and so we started talking the next night.

Bethany Harger: 53:32

Um, and it was like four.30 in the morning, 3.30 or 4.30 in the morning, and I finally was like I actually have to get off the phone because my, my 17 year old, was coming home from a Nauvoo trip and on Saturday, and I said we're leaving first thing Sunday morning to drive to Arizona, cause I was supposed to have gone for this trial, but the trial wasn't going through, and so we got off the phone and then, a couple of hours later I got up to just use the restroom and I noticed that there was a Marco Polo from him on my phone. And I was like, oh, that's where we just got off the phone a couple of hours ago. And I look at it and I noticed that he was driving. I'm like where is he driving? At seven o'clock and it dawned on me. I'm like, oh my gosh, he's not driving here. And so I opened this Marco Polo and cause I could see, like you know, it shows like a little blurb and so I can see he was in the car.

Bethany Harger: 54:15

So this whole thought process went on in just a couple of seconds in my mind. And he didn't have my address. But the LDS singles profile says Portsmouth. It just said the town I lived in. And so he got up Saturday morning and had the thought, well, he couldn't sleep. And he had the thought go see her. And so I wake up just to go to the bathroom. He's driving like three and a half hours to see me.

Alisha Coakley: 54:43

And you guys have only spoken on the phone once or twice. Now twice, twice wow.

Bethany Harger: 54:52

So he says I don't have to come, you don't have to, let me come. So I paused and like kind of checked in with the spirit, because this is either spirit driven or he's desperate, I don't know which. It is yet right, but timing wise, I needed to go to the city to get some shopping done in order to go on this cross country trip with my daughters, and so I had planned for my seven year old to go over to grandma's, and so it was just happening to work out that he would get there about the time that my daughter was gone, cause I said you can't, cause he had been. You know, I explained to him you can't meet my kids, like there has to.

Bethany Harger: 55:34

I can't just do that to my little one. And so when I realized that the timing was enough that he could meet me, so I was, I was honest and I said I can't go do anything with you, but if you really want to drive that far just just to meet me, you could go with me to the city, we could talk, and then you have to go back home as soon as I go Soon, as I need to go pick up my daughter and I'm like that's a three and a half hour drive both ways for you to hang out for just like an hour or two hour drive both ways for you to hang out for just like an hour or two and he decided to keep coming.

Bethany Harger: 56:14

And, of course, by this point I mean I knew one of the things that I had written in my vision is that I wanted this person to be living a rare faith lifestyle. And it didn't mean that they were living like they knew what rare faith was, but it was the idea of universal laws and faith combined. Um, I needed that. That was really important to me. And on our first conversation when you know, talking about what you do, and it came out that I was a coach in this rare faith, he's like, oh my gosh, what is that? And so I sent him a link to listen to the Jackrabbit factor and he just gobbled it up because he had been reading things like Napoleon Hill and James Allen and all. So we had the same language. He just hadn't seen it from the faith perspective that I had. And so I take my daughter over to grandma's and I come back and by the time I get back to my house he's sitting in the driveway, and so I mean, literally the timing, it couldn't have been. Clearly there was some divine intervention, you know kind of finagling all of this, and I pull up and I get out and he asked if he could hug me and he I don't remember how it all went we hugged and he kissed, okay, and I could tell what he was going to say. And like I already could feel, like the moment that he put his arms around me, my entire nervous system like just calmed. It was like like just calmed. It was like I went from years of fight or flight to this calmness that I had not experienced like ever. I'd never experienced what it felt like the moment that he put his arms around me and it was. I could feel my spirit, just feel like it had come home, like it had been searching for so long. And it was just there and he, he, he looks at me and I could see what was coming and I said don't say it. I said just don't say it. And he said um, he said what I knew he was going to say and he said I think that I love you and we've been talking for like 48 hours and the thing is that I knew it, like I could feel it, but I didn't want to recognize it. So I said what any woman would say and I said oh well, it's too soon to feel love. What you're feeling are simply the effects of the hormones designed to ensure the survival of the human race, effects of the hormones designed to ensure the survival of the human race. And he's like he just looks at me and says, hormones, I'm feeling hormones. No, actually I didn't.

Bethany Harger: 59:10

My kids laugh when they hear that I said that he said he loved me. They said, mom, please tell me that you didn't say thank you. And I said no, I did not say thank you. And their next response was OK, what did you say? Because it had to have been worse. And so we've all decided that that was like the worst response to and I love you ever, but it was just horrible. But it made him more determined to prove that he loved me and we, we drove to the city and on the drive back I fell asleep next to him in the car, like I was exhausted. You know I was just exhausted and I fell asleep and when he and then we said goodbye, you know he dropped. We got back to my place, he dropped me off and then he got in his car and he left and I went and got my daughter and I found out later that he took that.

Bethany Harger: 1:00:10

You know me falling asleep, that I was not attracted to him, that like there was no connection or spark, and but what I explained to him later is I said I hadn't felt safe in the presence of a man in a very long time. So for my, for my nervous system to be calm enough for me to fall asleep was actually what gave me the information I needed, to know that this was the person I had been looking for.

Bethany Harger: 1:00:35

And so I went to Arizona. I was gone for almost two weeks and I came home and we just would see each other on the weekends because he lived three and a half hours away. He had been married for 26 years before, um, when his marriage had ended and his ex-wife had moved to Utah, so it was just easier for him to come to come see me, um. And then he proposed and it was an easy yes and how long after like did he propose?

Bethany Harger: 1:01:08

Um, about a month from the time that we met, which almost two of those weeks I was in Arizona.

Alisha Coakley: 1:01:19

Wow.

Bethany Harger: 1:01:23

Yeah, my kids were kind of freaking out.

Alisha Coakley: 1:01:26

Yeah, I could see that.

Bethany Harger: 1:01:31

The difference was is that I had written about him, and what I didn't know when we first started but I started learning later is that he was writing about the person he wanted to be with, and so one of the things that we teach in rare faith is that what you want wants you back, and I have this documented evidence that the things that I wanted before he ever came into my physical world, he wanted. He wanted what I had to offer. He wanted and it was written in his journals and he practiced gratitude and all of those things that I was doing. And then he's been able to learn it from the gospel perspective and during the time. So when I said that I had been dating, and I was dating people that weren't members of the church also because, let's be honest, the LDS singles it's kind of a scary community. I hate to say it, but it's terrifying. And because they know your standards, they know what words to use. It's. It's actually not. It's just not a. Really I didn't have any really good experiences with it. I should just I'll just leave it at that.

Bethany Harger: 1:02:46

And during this time, I had felt really led to reading Jacob, chapter five, and one of the verses. I thought I had it written but it doesn't, I'm going to pull it up. In Jacob five, in verse 14, it says and it came to pass, that the Lord of the vineyard went his way and hid the natural branches of the tame olive tree and the nethermost parts of the vineyard, some in one and some in another, according to his will and pleasure. And then later the Lord and the servant go out to that you know another, another most part of the vineyard. And in verse 21, it says and it came to pass that the servant said unto his master how come is thou hither to plant this tree or this branch of the tree? For behold, it was the poorest spot in all the land of thy vineyard. And the Lord of the vineyard said unto him and when I read that at the time I just felt like there was the message that I needed to hear in it was to not judge by appearances. Um, and then what I thought it was saying, like I was being given permission to date outside of the gospel, and that maybe they weren't bearing forth, bearing the fruit, or it was, you know, part of the vineyard that I wouldn't necessarily think would bear fruit, and so that was what I had taken away from it.

Bethany Harger: 1:04:22

But then, when I was engaged to Matt, there was just some things that I learned that weren't catastrophic, but pieces that, for someone that was a member of the church, were deal breakers for me, the biggest of which was I didn't want to be left in a marriage where I was the one going to the temple on a regular basis and he either stopped going or went for me. I didn't actually want to go to the temple together if it was for me, and so it was a total deal breaker that he had to be going to the temple before we met, like that. That's what. Something that was part of his, his routine, so that I never had to question why he was going and when it. When I realized that that actually wasn't, wasn't happening.

Bethany Harger: 1:05:18

I was questioning, moving forward, and I remember specifically this one day that I was just standing and I was staring at him from across the room and I'm like I don't know what I'm going to do. This is the thought in my head, and the words were so clear Jacob, chapter five. I already knew this, and so I had already been given the direction. I already knew that he was the person I was going to marry. And so when this Jacob chapter five popped into my mind, I had been prepared, that was read and I had understood it and written about it before I ever met Matt. And so we decided you know when we decided to set the date. And the date ended up being a lot earlier than we were originally planning because we were going to go meet my family in Arizona but my dad can't travel anymore. So it just kind of made more sense to just get married in Arizona, which was amazing because Leslie Householder came to my wedding in Arizona and all my rare faith friends that were right there, like most of them were there along.

Bethany Harger: 1:06:23

I threw this wedding together in like three weeks and I did not share with Matt the date of my vision that I had written. He knew that I had something written, but I didn't share it with him because I never wanted to manipulate, I didn't want him to feel any kind of pressure, Um, but the date of my relationship vision was July 31st 2023. So on July 31st I woke up healthy marital relationship. So July 31st 2023,. I am so happy and grateful that I am in a healthy marriage relationship was all true.

Alisha Coakley: 1:07:08

Wow, that is so crazy, crazy. Oh my gosh. I like just want to stop the show and just go write down all my things with all my dates right now but I'm not going to put dates, so far out.

Bethany Harger: 1:07:26

I'm not Well. I was in the middle of a divorce so I had to.

Alisha Coakley: 1:07:32

Wow, that is so cool, oh my gosh. Wow, that is so cool, oh my gosh. So where, like, tell us where you are now on your journey. You know, like, how does life look for you and, um, I don't know just kind of, where's your testimony at with with all of this, and you know, you would think that this is such an amazing story and it really is like.

Bethany Harger: 1:08:16

You know, you would think that this is such an amazing story and it really is like it's this amazing story and it always was. But we got married and I have PTSD. I have CPTSD, which is complex PTSD, which is from ongoing emotional abuse, basically, and there's things even from my childhood, but mostly from different aspects of one or both marriages. And so now I'm in this relationship and my subconscious, which is, thankfully I have such a strong understanding of neuroscience thanks to what I've learned through Leslie's work but my subconscious was in complete freak out and it couldn't accept that I was safe. And so the first year of our marriage was actually really, really hard, and I literally married a saint.

Bethany Harger: 1:08:48

He I can't even say how many times he's had to pick me up off the floor from a full blown PTSD meltdown where I'm just, you know, for me so he had been in either therapy trying to save his first marriage together with her or for himself, for, I don't know years, years and years before me, and so one of the things that he was doing was he would practice mindfulness because he's had struggles with anger in the past and so when there would be a conflict arise between us, he would his go to was to just kind of retreat inside of himself.

Bethany Harger: 1:09:28

But it wasn't like it wasn't the silent treatment it was, he was using mindfulness techniques. It wasn't the silent treatment, it was, he was using mindfulness techniques. But my previous experiences had been that that was the calm before the storm and it was just about to erupt. And I mean there were times that the yelling it was so bad that would come at me that I would sleep on the garage floor. Like there was a section of the garage that was not our room but I didn't want anybody in the house to know that what was going on, and so I would just sleep on the garage floor. And so for me, my experience has said that when my partner gets quiet in the middle of conflict, he's about to erupt, and for him he needed to get quiet to process, so he didn't erupt.

Alisha Coakley: 1:10:16

Right.

Bethany Harger: 1:10:17

And so it was. There was a lot, it was, it was a lot and thankfully I say it was perfect. But it was perfect because we had both learned how to be vulnerable. We had both learned how to deal with our, with our stuff.

Scott Brandley: 1:10:36

It wasn't his fault.

Bethany Harger: 1:10:37

He wasn't the reason I was behaving this way and it wasn't my fault for why he behaved certain ways. All of that personal development work that we had done before we ever met is what kept us through. And then there was a lot that happened in our first year I had. There was happened in our first year I had. There was, um, I almost lost my 17 year old daughter in December of last year, um, and so we're dealing with that. And then we had to move. I had back surgery. So here we are newly married and he has to like back surgery is no joke, guys, it is, it is no joke. And you know he stayed at my hospital bedside and then helped me through that whole recovery process. And then we moved and we ended up.

Bethany Harger: 1:11:23

There was a lot of things that went around it, but essentially all of the financial resources that he came into the marriage with and everything that I had coming, it all stopped. This like it either was depleted or it stopped. And at this summer and it was at the time that my daughter was getting married in Utah and we were in the middle of this move and so it just felt like we had lost. We had lost everything. But even in that we have been able to draw closer in a way that would never have happened without that.

Bethany Harger: 1:11:57

For him, his worth, his whole, who he was, was tied up in his being a provider, in supporting the family, and so, when that was kind of taken, he's been able to experience that he doesn't have to give anything to be loved. He is loved and accepted and needed in exactly the space that he is. I don't need anything from him and he couldn't have really understood that without where we are. And for myself. He doesn't blame me. He doesn't blame me. Both of my previous husbands have you know I'm blamed for every single thing that went wrong, and I'm not saying that I didn't have my faults because I absolutely did. I absolutely contributed to. I would say I contributed to the first divorce. I would say with all honesty it was the mental health and the second divorce that ultimately led to the divorce.

Bethany Harger: 1:12:56

I would say with all honesty it was the mental health and the second divorce that that ultimately led to the divorce. But, um, yeah, so we're just rebuilding. We're at a point but we get to rebuild together and, um, he has. He has supported everything that I do, um, and he has supported everything that I do. He has supported. He feels really strongly that I need to be sharing my story and that I need to continue coaching and I have felt like I don't know how to do this anymore because it's not actually supporting my family, because I have clients, but I continue attracting clients that are coming from the spaces of where I used to be.

Bethany Harger: 1:13:34

Those are the ones that I could help the most, but they're also the ones that don't typically have the resources or even the mental strength to know that there is more on the other side, and so out of that has been born, leslie Householder and I are co-founding a nonprofit, and it is in its launch phase right now, and we are so excited about it.

Alisha Coakley: 1:14:00

Wow, and so do you want to. I mean, I know you guys have a name, but you're not ready to release it just yet, or?

Bethany Harger: 1:14:06

it should be able to be released tomorrow.

Alisha Coakley: 1:14:09

Oh, well, then you can share, because this is a recorded episode and it's going to air a little after we record. How about that? Or, I don't want no pressure.

Bethany Harger: 1:14:18

No, I'd actually thought about that and I actually feel confident because I thought, you know, it's probably not going to come out until tomorrow or the next day, whenever it comes out anyway. So it's the breakthrough foundation.

Alisha Coakley: 1:14:29

Oh perfect.

Bethany Harger: 1:14:30

So because we so many times we feel broken and what I've learned is that we're not. I'm not broke. I was never broken. I was just breaking through the past beliefs.

Alisha Coakley: 1:14:43

I love that.

Scott Brandley: 1:14:45

Yeah, that's a really nice play on words.

Alisha Coakley: 1:14:47

Really cool.

Bethany Harger: 1:14:48

Yeah and so yeah. And even foundation I mean foundation is typically used in nonprofits, but for us it's the breakthrough. Foundation I mean foundation is typically used in nonprofits but for us it's the breakthrough foundation.

Bethany Harger: 1:14:57

It's giving the tools and the resources and support so people could just get to the foundation. Because when I, when I got to what, when I started my whole personal development journey, I wasn't even at foundation. Like, I was in the basement, I couldn't even get to the foundation. And I approached Leslie with this idea of a nonprofit because, for a lot of reasons but part of it was, yes, my life has been forever changed by the curriculum and the things that I've learned in rare faith. But it wasn't just that there were people in the community, the rare faith community in Facebook, who would see my plight, they would see my struggles and they would reach out to me and it was truly like their support and their, their service to me. Some of them had gifts and, you know, modalities of healing that would help me, even though I was still in therapy and the things that I was doing. But they had resources and ways that I was being lifted and carried through this journey while I was also doing the rare faith and it curriculum, and it was through that kind of comprehensive support that got me to where I am, and so that's what we're excited is we're going to be able to get to offer more of that comprehensive support, and I don't know a single rare faith facilitator, including Leslie herself, that hasn't had scholarship people in, and sometimes there's funds available for the scholarship and sometimes there's not, and we, as facilitators, or the company itself, would just absorb those costs. Because how do you not share these things that are helping people and pulling them out of past beliefs, that are actually drawing them closer to the savior? It's not just about goals, how do you not?

Bethany Harger: 1:16:52

But I had gotten to where I'm like I can't do this because I can't support my family. I can't do it anymore. And so when I had this idea of a nonprofit, it was actually just for me. And then the spirit said no, you're thinking too small. It's like I don't know how this is too small, because this is a lot bigger than me. And I happened to be in a class with Leslie at the moment that this inspiration came to me and I looked at my screen and I was like, oh, I'm going to be a teacher, so I just decided to just have a conversation with her and she just immediately saw the vision of what this could do and the resources. I mean, it was such a good idea. It's so huge. Now we're just. You know we're knee deep in it, but everything has come together, the we found an organization that's helping us get it up off the ground and compliant. They have 100% compliance rate with the IRS since 1995.

Alisha Coakley: 1:17:54

Nice.

Bethany Harger: 1:17:55

Which is just. I didn't even know there was 100% in anything anymore. Yeah is when we're supposed to get I'm supposed to have the legal entity incorporated through the state of Iowa that we're going to get. Word, that that's, and once that's created, we can start accepting donations that will be retroactively tax deductible.

Alisha Coakley: 1:18:16

That's awesome.

Bethany Harger: 1:18:17

So the IRS allows 27 months to get your tax exempt status and because this organization that's doing it all for us, the IRS piece, has 100% acceptance rate at the IRS for decades.

Bethany Harger: 1:18:31

Now we just feel really confident and we've we already have people that are ready to sponsor. I have a retreat that I'm doing in a week and a half. That's like kind of the first, like the launch event of this new organization and, um, the board of directors, just in fact, one board member in particular, when she was first approached by Leslie was she kind of was like I, I don't know, it's that's a lot. I've been on boards, I don't know if I can do that. Um, I could be, you know, I, as long as I don't have a lot of responsibilities. But then a week later when I messaged her maybe it's a couple weeks and said this is where we're at, her reply back was the spirit had directed her, that she actually needed to hold a role, that if we needed responsibilities from her, she that's where, that's where she is going, because she felt so. Each of these people that have become our board of directors has felt prompted by the spirit that that's what they need to do.

Alisha Coakley: 1:19:38

And so so, essentially, what you're doing is you're offering scholarship programs to help coach people for free right or is it free or just for free who maybe aren't quite at the point where they actually understand why coaching is so, so helpful Right and where they don't even understand, like, the basic of the principles of you know, all the the rare faith teachings and things like that, Right?

Bethany Harger: 1:20:09

Yeah, and it's going to be. It's being built right now as far as exactly how the program is going to go, but I'm doing some of the inspiration that I have, for it is this program that I went through with this coach that introduced me to Leslie's work. So, where there's some creative modalities, some creative processing whether it's writing or art, um, different ways that we can process through, um, the thoughts that we have and that's one of the things that we do in Genius Bootcamp is getting tapping into the creative side of our brain. Um, and then, for those that need additional support there, there's the potential to have, um, you know, contracted assistance with at on an as needed basis for things like EFT, which is tapping, or emotional freedom techniques, or there's other modalities. It doesn't take the place of professional counseling when that's needed.

Bethany Harger: 1:21:01

This is just one of the greatest things that I love about coaching is that you're not bound by HIPAA, and so you know, with my clients I have pretty firm boundaries.

Bethany Harger: 1:21:18

As far as I love using the Marco Polo app, because if somebody really needs to process something, they can do it right then and there, and then I will get it.

Bethany Harger: 1:21:23

When I have a moment, I turn my phone to silent at night. But that ability to communicate with the person that you're working with outside of your scheduled 45 minute appointment, however often, you see, is really what has helped me the most, and it's why I love coaching and mentoring, and one of the things that I feel I have been gifted with is to know when my client needs a coach, someone to kind of push them outside of their comfort zone and be the one on the back end getting them moving, and when they need a mentor, when they need the person to sit with them in the dark, and they don't need to be coached. They don't need to be told what they could do better, and I feel like that is one of the things that all of my experiences gifted me with, because there were times that I did not need anybody to tell me what to do better, I just needed someone to sit with me in it.

Alisha Coakley: 1:22:21

Right.

Bethany Harger: 1:22:22

And then I've had my tail kicked a lot of times by a lot of mentors that were like you are better than this and you can do better. And so that is the vision that we're creating, and we're just I'm so excited about it.

Alisha Coakley: 1:22:39

That is so cool.

Scott Brandley: 1:22:41

Yeah, that's awesome.

Alisha Coakley: 1:22:45

Well, I just I have to vouch for I mean, I know I've talked so much on this podcast in the last couple of years about Leslie Householder and rare faith and just the things that I've learned and how it lines up so testimony of the gospel even more, because it helped me to understand more about, like, heavenly Father's divine role. You know, like, who he is, how he organized everyone and everything, why it is so important for us to completely heal ourselves. You know, with the help of the atonement and with the help of all of the other resources that God gives to us, um, and I, just I, I love that it helps you to become that full force co -creator with God. It's not like you're waiting around, you know, for God to work everything out for you anymore. It's like he has endowed us with this power, with his power to be able to to multiply and replenish the earth in such a way that it branches out beyond just having kids. Right, like I know a lot of our and that's like my favorite thing about what I learned in rare faith was like it is absolutely our job to multiply and replenish all the good that we can. Right, to multiply and replenish healing, growth, progression, forgiveness. You know, perseverance, like it's our responsibility to multiply financially so that we have more multiplied opportunities for people. It's our responsibility to multiply all of the charitable things and the service that is out there. That's all part of living.

Alisha Coakley: 1:24:35

The law of consecration, which is just one of the covenants that we adhere to and that we make when we go through the temple, is to really truly consecrate every single thought, deed, action. You know, opportunity to heavenly father, to his plan, and and I have just been on this like kick where I can't it's like I'm thirsty and I'm just I cannot get enough of it. And I remember being in a point years ago where I would never have considered a coach because I would have thought that's a waste of money. Why do I want to pay someone who is just going to talk to me about my feelings or whatever? I did not understand what it meant to work hand in hand with someone else who is also trying to create good things in life, and I am. So I'm like a coaching addict. Now I do all the things. I mean I'm sure anyone who's listened to the show long enough it's been like Alicia, do you like try everything that every person?

Alisha Coakley: 1:25:36

Yeah, I probably do I'm like, yes, teach me more, I just want to know more. But I love that you didn't give up number one right, and that you were like even though you felt like a hypocrite in some of those times and I can only imagine, like how hard that would be and and how much of a struggle that could have been for you to be like am I not living with integrity? Because I'm not actually seeing all this stuff? But the point is that you didn't quit because you knew that there was power in the way that heavenly father has structured all of the blessings that that we're privy to in this life and in the next, and I love that.

Alisha Coakley: 1:26:18

You um, earlier, when we were talking about, like your intro, you talked about how you just you felt like there was this messy middle where you were just in the storm, surrounded by fog, and you just didn't know what was happening, you didn't know what the purpose was, and it wasn't until until you got through all of that, until you navigated outside of the fog and away, like far enough away from the storm, where, yeah, maybe you were still wet, maybe it's still raining, but you're not, you're not in the middle of the ocean anymore, you know you're kind of like okay, now I at least have my feet on the ground, I'm on the shoreline and I can see I'm safe Still maybe not super comfortable, but I'm getting better and and just knowing that you all of a sudden are able to start seeing with that eternal perspective, like you're able to I think about President Nelson's talk where you know think celestially right, talk where you know think celestially right, like that is what I personally have experienced going through the rare faith stuff is that it has helped me to be able to think celestial, like to really get that God perspective in all different areas, to where I no longer have to be the victim and I don't. I don't have to make anybody else the bad guy either. Right, I don't have to make my circumstances the bad guy. I don't have to make my husband the bad guy when he you know when we're not agreeing on something, or my kids the bad guy for not doing what I want them to do, whatever it is.

Alisha Coakley: 1:27:44

There doesn't have to even be a bad guy, it's just oh, that's interesting. That's something that I am in right now, or I'm dealing with right now and now I can apply these principles and I can move forward to create something more beautiful. You know, I just I'm excited to see what your foundation is going to do, cause I think there are so many people in the world who just are, they're so deep in the rut that they really can't even see any light at all. So to ask them to not only like build something outside of that hole when they're like, honestly, they don't even know they're in a hole, probably they're like it's dark, I don't even know where I'm at.

Bethany Harger: 1:28:22

You just you don't, you don't. And one of the things when I was in the middle of before I had moved to Iowa and I was doing whole work and I took a rare moment to sit down and watch a movie with my I think she was two or three at the time, but we watched Moana. I hadn't seen it when it was in the theaters and I actually I have a coaching practice and it's Wayfinder Mentoring and Coaching and it's Wayfinding is from Moana.

Bethany Harger: 1:28:53

It's the first time that I was introduced to the term, but one of the first kind of things that I wrote, because I'm a writer now and I'm working on getting a book out and I'm just kind of coming out of that fog that I was in after that first year of marriage and I'm really excited about it. But there was a part in Moana where you know she is so excited and she's, you know she's out there and she realizes that she's off course and so she looks to the ocean and asks for help.

Bethany Harger: 1:29:25

And the ocean is, you know, representation of our Heavenly Father For me, that's what it represents to me and she looks and asks for help and this huge storm comes and it knocks her off of her boat and it kind of breaks apart and she's just clinging for dear life in the waves and you see her the next take.

Bethany Harger: 1:29:44

You see her waking, you know she gets up on the beach and she's so mad and she goes over and she's kicking the water and she says fish peeing you Like she's so mad. I asked you for help. And in the ocean, like pulls, you know, wave up, and it kind of points and she turns around and she can see that she's on the island of where Maui is at and she realizes that that storm that you know she thought she was off course and then this storm blows her even further but it actually blew her to where she, to where she needed to be. And I feel like the moment that I would, that I I was yelling at God and I was so mad and I said you know I did this hate letter, god, and I was so mad and I said you know I did this hate letter. It's like he pointed to me and said Look, and I feel like I'm finally on that island and and just like in Moana that her journey wasn't over.

Bethany Harger: 1:30:38

She didn't reach that island of Maui, and then it was all like she still had a lot in front of her, but she was no longer doing it alone. But she was no longer doing it alone and she had learned just a little bit. And I feel like that's where I've learned just enough, that I feel like I have the evidence on the other side of that storm that says there's actually purpose and it's not likely that it's just a random storm. It's actually taking you to where you're asking to be in the first place.

Scott Brandley: 1:31:09

Yeah, well, I think there's a lot of power and strength that comes from the journey.

Bethany Harger: 1:31:17

For sure.

Scott Brandley: 1:31:18

And I mean, I actually love the fact that you are coaching people and struggling at the same time. You just hadn't reached the destination yet and that becomes part of your story, right, and because of that, look where it took you, like, look where the storm took you to create a foundation where you can actually help people who are at the bottom of you know Maslow's hierarchy of needs. They're like like barely surviving.

Scott Brandley: 1:31:51

Now you can relate to them and you can actually give them a place to start, so they're not just drowning in the ocean. You're like you're, you're handing them a life raft and be like help me, I can help you get to the shore, so then you can actually continue on your journey. You don't drown. I think it's awesome.

Bethany Harger: 1:32:12

It's interesting that you said that, because the Maslow's hierarchy of needs has been a really big piece of why I am so insistent that there are truly people that are not just limiting their beliefs as far as not hiring a coach or not enrolling in a program that could help them because they don't know what they don't know when you are on that bottom rung of that hierarchy of needs, you can't reach your fulfillment, you can't reach your destiny.

Bethany Harger: 1:32:47

And as a bookkeeper, when I was using my accounting degree, I worked with a nonprofit. I did their books and they um, I love seeing so many nonprofits that are helping in other countries and I'm also glad that was not my calling. I've lived out of this country and I'm just, I'm good, but we have really significant needs here and they they look like the girl that's in. That's just. I don't look at a mom in a grocery store with a screaming child that she's completely ignoring. I don't look at them the same. They aren't poor parents, they aren't letting. Or the one that is like no, no, no is fine, just put it all in the basket Like they are fighting for survival. That was me.

Bethany Harger: 1:33:35

Like they don't know. And one of the greatest blessings in my life has been having a child at 41 years old, because not only have I got to be a different parent for her, but that relationship with my older children has been healed and is continuing to heal because they are witnessing their mom. I don't just get to say well, I could have been a better mom if I had known X, y, z. They're actually watching me be a better mom to their little sister.

Bethany Harger: 1:34:05

And so that has, in turn, helped to heal those things that I did really, really wrong when they were younger so.

Alisha Coakley: 1:34:14

I love that. Yeah, wow, well, this has just been such a good I knew it was going to be such a good episode and, um, and I really appreciate coming on here and sharing your story and sharing a little bit about the foundation, what you guys have going on, um, so I guess, like before we wrap up, are there, you know, do you have any last thoughts or anything like that? Would you like to share a little bit about, maybe, um, what people can do if they want to get in touch with you, either for the foundation aspect or for more information on your personal coaching or someone else's program, you know, like the genius bootcamp or whatever else. So I guess, give us all the things.

Bethany Harger: 1:35:02

They could reach out to me personally either my email or they can find me on social media. There's a depending on what the needs media. There's a depending on what the needs are. There's a few avenues. So I offer personal coaching. You know, if you're in a space that you're ready to invest in yourself, I offer that.

Bethany Harger: 1:35:17

If you're wanting more of like, if you want something, what? Everything that I do has a rare faith into it. Whether I pull in the curriculum from rare faith because I'm a facilitator, that's just part of what I do. But also, if somebody is looking more to be in a class where there's more than one, a bigger class, then I would send them the resources that they need for that. But if they're in a place that they know that they want to grow but they're not sure how to do that, then it's going to fall under the foundation. And if somebody hears this and feels like they would like to donate again because we don't have all the links, we actually do have the URL set up, but we need to. We're just. It's a process as we, as we wait for the entity to incorporate in Iowa which is expected to be tomorrow to get the paperwork back for that.

Bethany Harger: 1:36:11

But they could just contact me directly and I'll just put them into the place that they need to be.

Alisha Coakley: 1:36:15

Okay, perfect. Well, we'll make sure to put all of the things that we can at the time that we air this episode. We'll make sure we put everything in the description for others so that they can reach out and get in touch with you and, of course, if all else fails, reach out to Scott and I. We can get in touch. We can do that.

Bethany Harger: 1:36:36

I was hoping that we would have it all set up by today. It just took a little bit longer through. Iowa than we expected I really need to.

Scott Brandley: 1:36:45

I really need to read this Jackrabbit book.

Alisha Coakley: 1:36:48

I need to learn more about.

Scott Brandley: 1:36:49

Leslie House.

Alisha Coakley: 1:36:50

We've talked about it so many times.

Scott Brandley: 1:36:56

And I love reading. I'm constantly reading, so I just I really I need a kick in the butt.

Alisha Coakley: 1:37:03

Well, and my favorite is not even the Jackrabbit factor, which I know a lot of people like, but mine is Hidden Treasures. Like man, that one is just it's got scriptures, it's got. It's so clearly. I mean just in what's the word? It's like woven into the gospel and like that is my favorite. I tell everybody about Hidden Treasures. It's not even Jack.

Bethany Harger: 1:37:33

And Jackrabbit Factor is great too. But I just went straight. I love hidden treasures, for for me, hidden Jack rabbit factor was like this eye opening what the possibilities, but hidden treasures is where I mean. I'm so like going deeper.

Bethany Harger: 1:37:42

Well, my faith is such a big part of me that, honestly, if I had learned about the law of attraction, I would have dismissed it. Um like, if I had learned about the law of attraction, I would have dismissed it. Um, like, if I had learned all that from the worldview, I would have just dismissed it as just woo woo. But because it's it is, it's integrated throughout the scriptures and that is actually the best part of what Leslie teaches and she's actually creating um. She taught it when we were just on a on the cruise that we all went on or several people went on um that the the difference between the law of attraction and rare faith.

Bethany Harger: 1:38:18

Um and the law of attraction. The one that stood out to me the most that she put on the PowerPoint was in the law of attraction it says that if you're not getting, you know you're not seeing the results that you should be, then you're doing it wrong, and so I had dubbed myself the rarefee failure because that was how I kept seeing it. But she's, she has this other piece of it. That's when you put God in it. It's. God helps us learn that just because you can doesn't mean you should, and he, he cares more about our growth than he does our wealth, and so the wealth is fine, but he cares about the growth first, and so I am so grateful I didn't receive the wealth first, or I wouldn't have what I have now.

Alisha Coakley: 1:39:06

Yeah Well, for anyone interested, you guys can go to rarefaithorg and there are free downloads of both of those books. I know that they have them on audible as well, that you guys can purchase if you want to. But if you just want to read it for free, you can absolutely go read it for free. Um, so go do it. It'll just help your testimony. So much of the of the gospel and of how much Heavenly Father like, loves us and just put so many things in our path for us to be able to use. And it doesn't have to be like it can be hard, but it doesn't have to feel impossible, you know, like it really, I don't know. Anyway, I'm going to, I'm going to step off my pedestal now.

Bethany Harger: 1:39:49

It's a good pedestal, it's a good one. Yeah Well, thank you guys so much. I appreciate the opportunity to share a little bit and I tried to condense it and it's still just, and that was honestly the cliff notes. There was so many miracles and there was even more trials than that. Those were the big ones.

Alisha Coakley: 1:40:08

Well, it's awesome that you're going to be able to put it into a book and you can go read the hours and hours of the book when you get that done.

Scott Brandley: 1:40:15

Yeah, awesome. Well, thanks, bethany, and thank you everyone for tuning in to listen to Bethany's story. Hopefully, you know you've learned something new, you've been inspired and you know, if you want to help spread Bethany's story, go hit that share button and do your five second missionary work. Let's get this out there, because I know there's people that could use this information and get inspired from Bethany's story.

Alisha Coakley: 1:40:47

Yeah, absolutely.

Alisha Coakley: 1:40:48

And remember, guys, Scott and I love when people reach out to us and we don't have to go track you down.

Alisha Coakley: 1:40:54

So, just if you're feeling the little feelings and Heavenly Father's like, hey, we want to hear from you, we want to know what your story is, we want to know how your testimony has grown and what type of storms that you've navigated in your life that are going to help you to have more eternal perspective, how your testimony has grown and what type of storms that you've navigated in your life that are going to, you know, help you to have more eternal perspective of things.

Alisha Coakley: 1:41:12

So, please, please, please, reach out to us. You can either message us on Facebook, you can send us an email at latterdaylights, at gmailcom, or you can head over to latterdaylightscom, our webpage, and at the bottom there's a place where you can fill out a contact form. So we would just be so, so thrilled to have you guys reach out to us with your stories of faith and and light and inspiration so that we can keep the show going and keep reaching others who really need to, uh, to have more light in their life. So, with that, thank you guys for listening. We really appreciate it. And thank you again, bethany, for coming on today.

Bethany Harger: 1:41:48

Thank you.

Scott Brandley: 1:41:48

Yeah, see you next week with another listening we really appreciate it, and thank you again, bethany, for coming on today. Thank you, yeah. See you next week with another episode. Till then, take care, bye.