Get to Know Beth Ratzlaff

Frequently Asked Questions about Beth Ratzlaff

How do people describe you?

I am playful, creative, gentle, kind, and loyal. I go through my days with a good bit of childlike wonder and delight.

You can tell a lot about people from what they love. What do you love?

I love beauty and the awe it inspires. I especially love the colors, sounds, smells, flora and fauna, blue-sky days, dramatic lightning storms, and milky-way nights of the mountains of Colorado. One of my favorite words is “Wow!”. Flowers, trees, and mountain vistas speak truth deep into my soul.

I love seeing the reflection of God in the faces of diverse people. I feel wonder when I make new friends in Tanzania, Cambodia, India, Nicaragua, close to home …anywhere really.

I love seeing the look the on the face of a person I’m meeting with when they realize God loves them more than they can fathom. I love being present when God sets a person free from something that has been plaguing them.

I love weeping with those who weep and waiting with them for the day when God will wipe away the tears.

I love “AHA !” moments

I love my husband, grown-up children, and little grandchildren.

I could go on, and on. If you want a more complete list, you can always ask!

What is your Church Backgroud?

I have attended churches affiliated with various denominations over the years. I have gained much and learned much from all of them (and from some members of other traditions who wrote about their life with God.)

From:

Contemplatives: I learn that Jesus is the living Word of God. I can be with God, walking and talking together. God is present, speaking, and actively caring for me. God is nearer than my next breath.

Sacramental Churches: I learn that the family of God goes way back. Using my whole body to worship through standing, kneeling, making the sign of the cross, receiving the elements and communion, etc. reminds me that the incarnated Christ loves my body as well as the other parts of me.

Charismatics: I learn that the Holy Spirit is active today: healing, guiding, reconciling, counseling, comforting…

Social Justice Traditions: I learn that God loves people regardless of social, racial, economic, or other statis. I am invited to tag along and enjoy the blessing of participating in actively loving people whoever, and wherever they may be.

Evangelicals: I learn that the Bible is a treasure, and the words are alive and powerful. From the Bible I learn the story of history through creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.

Holiness Traditions: God hates evil the way our immune system hates invading bacteria. God wants us to enjoy life whole and free from anything that could destroy us.

I hold to the classic beliefs that Christians have believed since the resurrection. They are laid out in the Apostle’s Creed, Nicene Creed, and Athanasian Creed.

Why are you a spiritual director?

I love giving others the opportunity to be seen and heard in a safe, confidential environment. I approach spiritual direction as one who knows how deeply nourishing it is to meet with my director. I want to pay that goodness forward.

What is your life with God like?

I am growing stronger in embracing an ever deeper understand of how high and wide and deep and long God’s love for me is. I find that as I grow older, I grow more dependent on God. I simply cannot survive a day without consciously encountering God. The core desire in my soul is to be fully alive, walking in complete union with God (as taught by St. Teresa of Avila and others.)

I deeply desire to be a burning bush. A person who emits, in the words of Madeine L’Engle, “a light that is so lovely that (others) want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”

What qualifications do you have to serve as a Christ-centered spiritual director?

A good spiritual director loves God with all of their being, and is a good listener, to God, to others, and to their own soul. We are always growing in these things, and never master them and move on. Spiritual direction is a relationship of trust.

I trained professionally in the art of spiritual direction at the School of Spiritual Direction founded by the late Larry Crabb. I also studied spiritual formation at the Renovaré Institute. I am so grateful for the ways God formed and equipped me through those excellent programs.

As impactful as the formal training I have received, has been what I have learned directly, from impactful image bearers in the spiritual formation world and indirectly (through books) from wise women and men who have gone before us. I am so grateful for the ways they have shared what they have learned with me.

In addition to my certificates in spiritual direction and spiritual formation, I also have a BA in education and an MA in curriculum and instruction.

How long have you been offering spiritual direction?

I have been certified and formally offering direction since 2012. Long before that, all my adult life, I’ve met with people for the purpose of listening to them and discovering what God might be doing in the most confusing circumstances.

You also work as a writer?

When I’m not off playing, or creating, or hanging out with my family, I work as a writer about life with God. I am author of The God’s Story Devotional, and the Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Devotional (based on Ruth Haley Barton’s excellent book). Both have been translated into eight languages and are used by the world-wide staff of a large non-profit relief and development organization.

My Bible lessons and leadership lessons are used by Get HOPE Global.

What else are you passionate about?

I serve at Get Hope Global as a trainer and steering team member. We provide faith-based business training materials and microloans to women seeking to emerge from poverty.

I started my career as a teacher. I was a founder of Front Range Christian School in Littleton Colorado.