Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Speaker 1: Church and this is our podcast and I wanted to
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you.
Speaker 1: Hope it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective
Speaker 1: to see God as moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: We're incredibly blessed today to have one of the best
Speaker 1: Bible teachers in the country to share God's word with us.
Speaker 1: Lisa Harper is here one of the most prominent teachers
Speaker 1: and preachers at conferences in women's events today. She's a
Speaker 1: gifted author, and I think you're gonna really love how
Speaker 1: she makes the Bible just come alive when she teaches.
Speaker 1: And I also think you're going to be encouraged hearing
Speaker 1: God's goodness and faithfulness towards her and her family. She
Speaker 1: has an amazing story, and in fact, she brought a
Speaker 1: video just to share a little bit about what God
Speaker 1: has done in her family's life. So we're gonna watch that.
Speaker 1: Then she's going to be up here to preach. And
Speaker 1: so when this video is done and she takes the stage,
Speaker 1: let's give her the best Elevation Church welcome possible. Are
Speaker 1: you ready to hear from God today? All right, you
Speaker 1: guys can take a seat, take a look at the screens.
Speaker 1: In April twenty twelve, I jumped off a proverbial cliff
Speaker 1: and into the greatest adventure and joy of my life.
Speaker 1: I began the process of adopting my little girl, Melissa
Speaker 1: Price Harper. I love you. Her first mama, Marie, died
Speaker 1: as a result of undiagnosed days when Missy was just
Speaker 1: a baby, unwittingly infecting her with HIV, which was exacerbated
Speaker 1: by a tuberculosis, severe malnutrition, and a host of other ailments.
Speaker 1: Doctors Importer Prince didn't give Missy much of a chance,
Speaker 1: but then again they didn't know. My baby girl has
Speaker 1: the heart of a warrior. Our adoption process took two
Speaker 1: long years, but I finally got to bring her home
Speaker 1: to Tennessee on April fourteenth, two thy fourteen, just a
Speaker 1: few days before Easter, which seemed especially fit girl. And
Speaker 1: her name was Missy and she was so sutt We
Speaker 1: and her mama came to Haiti and said, that's my baby.
Speaker 1: Brought her home to tennis See. Yeah. Yeah, every single
Speaker 1: day since has been better than the one before. By
Speaker 1: the grace of God in great medical care, Missy's health
Speaker 1: is now excellent. Her HIV is completely undetectable, and her
Speaker 1: lungs have no scars from the tuberculosis she suffered from
Speaker 1: as a toddler. She even has killer ABS, which is
Speaker 1: really the only dead giveaway She's not my biological child.
Speaker 1: We're surrounded by an incredible community of friends and family.
Speaker 1: Missy has more doting aunts and uncles than just about
Speaker 1: any kid I know. Plus we've had the joy of
Speaker 1: getting to go back to the village she's from and
Speaker 1: Haiti and share the love of Christ with her extended
Speaker 1: family members. Psalm sixty eight declares that God is a
Speaker 1: father to the fatherless, a husband to the husbandless, and
Speaker 1: he places the lonely in families. That's definitely our story
Speaker 1: and I plan on praising Him over it for the
Speaker 1: rest of my life. That's lot of kisses. I didn't
Speaker 1: kiss you a lot, though, yes, a little bit kissed you.
Speaker 1: No way, no way, I'm coming kiss monsters, We're coming
Speaker 1: after you. Hey, do you know why I kiss you? Why?
Speaker 1: Why do you think because you love me? How much
Speaker 1: do you think I love you more than the whole world?
Speaker 1: Yep about that much is even wider. No way, that's fine,
Speaker 1: No way, no way, y'all. Oh, please be seated, Please
Speaker 1: be seated. And so tickled to be here. I cannot
Speaker 1: even tell you how honored I am to be here.
Speaker 1: Please please please sit down. You're going to be mad
Speaker 1: at me in a minute. Anyway. I'm just undone. I
Speaker 1: feel like a donkey at the Kentucky Derby because I
Speaker 1: love Elevation Church. I watch y'all online all the time
Speaker 1: from Nashville, deeply, deeply respect what God has done through
Speaker 1: Holly and Pastor Stephen, and y'all feel like you'll just
Speaker 1: epitomize christ admonition to be a city on a hill,
Speaker 1: to be a light to the world. So the fact
Speaker 1: that I get to be here just undoes me. I
Speaker 1: do want to bring two qualifications because my main prayer
Speaker 1: leading up to this was that I wouldn't unwittingly throw
Speaker 1: a monkey wrench into what God is doing through y'all
Speaker 1: and through your campuses, and so I need to go
Speaker 1: ahead and qualify two things. One is I'm old. I'm
Speaker 1: much much older than Pastor Steven or most of your
Speaker 1: pastoral staff. And I'm also going through what some would
Speaker 1: call the Change, which is probably TMI, gentlemen. But the
Speaker 1: reason I tell you that is because during the change,
Speaker 1: I've developed a spiritual gift called projectile perspiration, and I
Speaker 1: can pretty much aim where I'm in a sweat and
Speaker 1: because it's one hundred and forty five degrees today and
Speaker 1: I'm in a fluffy season, that has exacerbated my spiritual gift.
Speaker 1: And so y'all are going to get wet, all of you.
Speaker 1: We're going to call this sea world in Charlotte. And
Speaker 1: I think we just vote that it's a baptism. It's
Speaker 1: just an extra baptism. So that's my first qualification. The
Speaker 1: second qualification is we're going to talk this morning about
Speaker 1: the immutable, that is the unchanging hope of Christ. But
Speaker 1: the way we're going to get there is through a
Speaker 1: true story in scripture that some equate with sticking your
Speaker 1: hand in a blender. And so I need you to
Speaker 1: hang with me when I tell you to turn in
Speaker 1: your Bibles to the Book of Job. So turning the
Speaker 1: Old Testament to the true Story of Job. If you'll
Speaker 1: head to the Psalms and then just back up, you'll
Speaker 1: hit Job. Usually it's not a book. We're super familiar
Speaker 1: with women. We never cross stitch this one because it's
Speaker 1: a hard story. It's a tough story. I so appreciate
Speaker 1: that Pastor Zach said that this had been a difficult
Speaker 1: week because I think all too often in Christian circles
Speaker 1: we act like once we commit our lives to Christ,
Speaker 1: everything's perfect, and I'm like, that's not even biblically sound.
Speaker 1: Jesus said, in this world you will have trouble. He
Speaker 1: is a good God. Life can be incredibly hard. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you you lose your metabolism and your hair is comically dependent.
Speaker 1: But that's just me. Y'all have different kind of grief.
Speaker 1: She've been through. And I think we do the world
Speaker 1: a disservice when as christ followers we pretend like we
Speaker 1: never struggle anymore. I think that's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: they think we're big fat hypocrites, is because we aren't
Speaker 1: hon Us about the places where we need Jesus to
Speaker 1: carry us. I was at a women's event recently and
Speaker 1: I asked a woman how I could pray for her,
Speaker 1: and she said, oh, no, I don't need prayer, and
Speaker 1: I was like, you're about to, because I'm gonna punch
Speaker 1: you in the throat for being a liar. There are
Speaker 1: seasons in our life where it is appropriate for us
Speaker 1: to say, Lord, I'm not sure I can handle this.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I can hike up this hill in
Speaker 1: front of me. Apart from you carrying me, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna make it through the next season of my life.
Speaker 1: Job says exactly that. Now y'all probably know his story.
Speaker 1: He's a really good guy. In the first chapter, it
Speaker 1: says that he is a righteous man. He's an upright man.
Speaker 1: Some translations say he's a perfect man. That doesn't mean
Speaker 1: he's sinless. That just means he's a good guy. It
Speaker 1: says that he's living a good life. If you study
Speaker 1: all of his acquisitions, he lived in the patriarchal period
Speaker 1: or pre patriarchal period. They aren't sure exactly when this
Speaker 1: story took place, but it was some time between fifteen
Speaker 1: hundred and a thousand years before the birth of Christ,
Speaker 1: so long time ago. And if you study his acquisitions
Speaker 1: based on that context, it proves that he had about
Speaker 1: eleven thousand servants if you include women and children. He
Speaker 1: had vast agricultural holdings, and most of his wealth was
Speaker 1: based in agriculture, which I love that because I'm old
Speaker 1: and this will just telegraph my age. I'm about to
Speaker 1: fifty five, but I am not attracted to men and
Speaker 1: skinny jeans. I'm much more attracted to a guy in wranglers,
Speaker 1: like with a John Deere. And that's I mean, that's
Speaker 1: just me, but could be while I'm fifty four and single.
Speaker 1: But anyway, that's kind of job. You know. He's this
Speaker 1: good guy. He's living a good life. He's got like
Speaker 1: a fleet of John Deere's. There's a fish sticker on
Speaker 1: all of his John Deere's. He's wearing wranglers. The knees
Speaker 1: are worn out, and his wranglers from praying because also
Speaker 1: in chapter one it says it is his continual habit
Speaker 1: to pray for his family. He has seven sons, three daughters,
Speaker 1: and it says it is his continual habit. In chapter one.
Speaker 1: Most translations say early every morning, but that's Hebrew idiom.
Speaker 1: That just means it was his continual habit. So he
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily set his iPhone for five thirty every morning
Speaker 1: to get up and pray for his family, but it
Speaker 1: was his continual habit. So he's a good guy. He's
Speaker 1: doing good things with his life. He's living a good life.
Speaker 1: And one of my favorite commentators says, Job was not
Speaker 1: filthy rich, he was clean rich because he used a
Speaker 1: lot of his wealth to help the poor and the underprivileged,
Speaker 1: underserve the marginalized. So this is this kind of great
Speaker 1: beginning of a story, and then it turns into a
Speaker 1: train wreck because right after we're taught all these things
Speaker 1: about this true guy. This is not metaphor, this is
Speaker 1: a historical tale. This really happened. Right after we read
Speaker 1: those things, we find out Job loses everything through no
Speaker 1: fault of his own. As a matter of fact, I
Speaker 1: don't have time to go here. This is a rabbit trail.
Speaker 1: I hope it's redemptive. But God actually is the one
Speaker 1: who causes Job's loss. And we tend to think if
Speaker 1: I put the right quarter in God's coke machine, I'll
Speaker 1: get everything I want. What we don't bargain for is
Speaker 1: sometimes God wants to purify us in pain as a
Speaker 1: conduit for that. Sometimes God will prune us and it
Speaker 1: hurts like a dog, and he says, honey, all you
Speaker 1: can experience right now now is the pain. What you
Speaker 1: can't see because you're human and you see through the
Speaker 1: glass dimily is around the corner from this, this pruning
Speaker 1: is going to cause prolific growth in your life. If
Speaker 1: we could begin to trust that sometimes not all the times.
Speaker 1: I would never say evil as divinely causive. I would
Speaker 1: never say God caused cancer or car wrecks. That's just foolishness.
Speaker 1: But sometimes the pain we walk through is directly from God.
Speaker 1: In the case of Job, he held Job up to
Speaker 1: that lion lizard we call Satan and says, have you
Speaker 1: considered my servant Job? His uprightness did not cause him
Speaker 1: to be immune from difficulty. It actually promoted him to
Speaker 1: difficulty because God said, I know this guy. I know
Speaker 1: the way he's going to walk through this difficult season.
Speaker 1: It's going to bring me glory, y'all. It would blow
Speaker 1: our hard drive if we would begin to change our
Speaker 1: perspective on pain and go some of That's what I'm
Speaker 1: walking through is because God thinks that I can handle
Speaker 1: it in a way that eventually I'll bear more fruit
Speaker 1: and I will bring him glory. So instead of trying
Speaker 1: to numb it or get around it or whine about it,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to walk toward him. In the midst
Speaker 1: of this Job loses everything he's accumulated, all of his wealth,
Speaker 1: all of his servants die, all ten of his children
Speaker 1: are killed. And on the heels of that horrific tragedy,
Speaker 1: his wife says, and you probably remember this, you may
Speaker 1: as well curse God and die. Now she's vilified in
Speaker 1: church culture, has been since the beginning of church culture.
Speaker 1: But I don't actually take much offense with missus Job,
Speaker 1: because I can't imagine how I would react if something
Speaker 1: happen to Missy and this mama has just lost ten
Speaker 1: all ten of her children, and so the fact that
Speaker 1: she reacts like that, I think, you know, I probably
Speaker 1: would have cut him. So the fact that all she says,
Speaker 1: as you may as well curse God and die, I
Speaker 1: think that makes sense to me for a mama who's
Speaker 1: in grief and in shock. Job meanwhile says nothing. He
Speaker 1: loses all of this, loses his health, his wealth, loses
Speaker 1: his family loses everybody loves except for his grumpy wife.
Speaker 1: And his response, we're told at the end of chapter one,
Speaker 1: is he shaves his head, he tears his robe. Those
Speaker 1: were signs of extreme grief in this era. And then
Speaker 1: it says he worships isn't that beautiful y'all? Because usually
Speaker 1: we think to be in grief, or to be sad,
Speaker 1: or to be even depressed, that that is the opposite
Speaker 1: end of the spectrum of worship, and God says no,
Speaker 1: to have a broken heart and raised hands, that's actually
Speaker 1: the same continuum. As a matter of fact, I think
Speaker 1: it is a deeper, more sacrificial worship to worship like
Speaker 1: kubbacic in job though if it feels like you are
Speaker 1: slaying me yet, well, I still raise my hands and
Speaker 1: sing Hallelujah, because even though I don't understand while I'm
Speaker 1: walking through this, I trust that You're a good God,
Speaker 1: and I trust that ultimately, ultimately, all of this is
Speaker 1: for my good and for your glory. Asaiah calls that
Speaker 1: blind faith. Sometimes it's actually just put one foot in
Speaker 1: front of the other. Do you know that perky is
Speaker 1: not listed as a spiritual gift? You know? I used
Speaker 1: to think it was. I used to think there was
Speaker 1: this continuum and there were emotions that were approved by God,
Speaker 1: and those were like the happy, perky emotions, No, I'm
Speaker 1: doing great, victory, victory, and then the emotions over here
Speaker 1: that were Man, it's tough, I know, Jesus will bring
Speaker 1: the victory. I'm victory minded, but man, today I am
Speaker 1: in the pit, i'd be like, you know what, you're
Speaker 1: just opposed that Christian. That's inappropriate to see that those
Speaker 1: two God oftentimes brings them together. And so if you
Speaker 1: praise me when everything's going great, well good, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like Luke six. If you love those who love
Speaker 1: you until you look skinny in those genes, what good
Speaker 1: is it to you? But if you praise me, and
Speaker 1: if you love people who don't love you, well, that
Speaker 1: actually is more pure and undefiled worship. And that's where
Speaker 1: job is. He's being honest about his stuff. He's saying
Speaker 1: this hurts. I don't like this. I didn't pray for this,
Speaker 1: I didn't dream of this, But I trust you, I'm
Speaker 1: still gonna worship you. He's being honest. He's bringing all
Speaker 1: of him to all of God. He's not editing and
Speaker 1: just bringing the part of him that's perky to God.
Speaker 1: He's bringing all of him to all of God. I
Speaker 1: appreciated Lauren's testimony that she said, I thought if I
Speaker 1: transferred schools, maybe a new peer group would make me
Speaker 1: feel better. Y'all, some of us feel the same way,
Speaker 1: even though we're older than Lauren. If only I had
Speaker 1: better friends, if only I had a promotion, if only
Speaker 1: I got the proposal I've been hanging on for. Some
Speaker 1: of us are always thinking, if I got that greener grass,
Speaker 1: then I'd be hopeful, And I'm like, man, we need
Speaker 1: a bigger hero, don't we. Because the hero we've got
Speaker 1: to hold on for is Jesus, our Redeemer, King Jesus,
Speaker 1: who eclipses these momentary things we think will give us
Speaker 1: hope and healing. He's so much bigger than a peer group.
Speaker 1: He's so much better than a promotion or a proposal.
Speaker 1: He is what our souls long for most. And even
Speaker 1: though Job was suffering well, he, like us, sees through
Speaker 1: the glass dimily, so he didn't always get it. God
Speaker 1: says he didn't sin in his grief, and y'all, it's
Speaker 1: important for us to know that grief is not sin.
Speaker 1: Where we go in our grief is where we get
Speaker 1: in trouble. And I'm going to say one thing, and
Speaker 1: I hope I don't get eggs thrown at me for this,
Speaker 1: But healthy grief, godly grief, does not demand an audience
Speaker 1: or applause. Healthy grief. Godly grief does not demand an
Speaker 1: audience or applause. We've gotten so used to airing our
Speaker 1: aches and pains on social media, and if we don't
Speaker 1: get enough likes or enough follows, we think nobody's being
Speaker 1: nice to me. And I'm like, God never intended us
Speaker 1: to bring all of ourselves to all of humanity. He's like, no,
Speaker 1: you bring all of you to all of me. I'm
Speaker 1: the one who has healing. I'm the one who has healing.
Speaker 1: If you feel compelled when you ache to run to
Speaker 1: social media before you run to your savior, y'all, that's
Speaker 1: not real grief. That's actually self indulgent whiny. We have
Speaker 1: got to run to Jesus first. Jesus is our hope. Now,
Speaker 1: before I totally grind your toe into the carpeting, I
Speaker 1: want to encourage those of you who feel like you're
Speaker 1: stuck in a Hawhini season. That job epitomizes that too.
Speaker 1: Job Chapter nineteen, verse thirteen. This is the Nator. This
Speaker 1: is the very bottom of his experience. He is at
Speaker 1: the deepest level of the pit. And here's what he says.
Speaker 1: It's not perky at all interesting that God says he
Speaker 1: didn't sin here because I want you to listen to
Speaker 1: how depressed he is. He has put my brothers far
Speaker 1: from me, and those who knew me are holy. Is
Speaker 1: strange for me. This is job Chapter nineteen, verse thirteen,
Speaker 1: verse fourteen. My relatives have failed me. My close friends
Speaker 1: have forgotten me. The guest in my house and my
Speaker 1: maid servants count me as a stranger. I've become a
Speaker 1: foreigner in their eyes. I call to my servant, but
Speaker 1: he gives me no answer. I must plead with him
Speaker 1: with my mouth for mercy. My breath is strange to
Speaker 1: my wife. That's not a great translation. Better translation is
Speaker 1: King James, my breath is offensive to my wife. In
Speaker 1: other words, they are not sleeping in the same bed
Speaker 1: he's on the couch. They are not getting jiggy with it,
Speaker 1: even though they are married. Even young children despise me.
Speaker 1: When I rise. They talk against me. All my intimate
Speaker 1: friends abhor me, and those whom I loved have turned
Speaker 1: against me. I've got nothing, no friends, no home, no reputation.
Speaker 1: I've got nothing. I feel absolutely despondent. Have you ever
Speaker 1: been there, ever been in the place, so you think
Speaker 1: I can put on a happy face at church, But man,
Speaker 1: I hate what I'm facing when I go home. This
Speaker 1: is a little more than I bargained for. I started
Speaker 1: the adoption process when I was in my late forties
Speaker 1: and I got matched initially with a precious young woman
Speaker 1: who was a prostitute and hardcore crack addict. Till the
Speaker 1: adoption agent. I don't want a kid that it's the chance,
Speaker 1: a good chance at a mom and a dad. I
Speaker 1: think that's best case scenario. So I would much rather
Speaker 1: be considered for a child who doesn't have much of
Speaker 1: a shot, because, in my opinion, as a single woman,
Speaker 1: best case scenario for a kid is to have a
Speaker 1: mama and a daddy. And I said, so, if there's
Speaker 1: a child who doesn't look like they have a great
Speaker 1: shot for that, then I think maybe a fluffy single
Speaker 1: woman in Tennessee would be a better option than death
Speaker 1: in a third world orphanage or in a precarious situation
Speaker 1: of states. And I got match with this precious kid,
Speaker 1: hardcore crack addict. I spent seven months in relationship with her.
Speaker 1: I spent Christmas that year in the crackhouse because when
Speaker 1: I was with her, she used a lot less and
Speaker 1: I just fell in love with this little mama because
Speaker 1: she was desperate twenty three years old. Don't have time
Speaker 1: to tell you her backstory, but I will tell you
Speaker 1: if I had her backstory, I would be very tempted
Speaker 1: to abuse narcotics as well to numb the pain of
Speaker 1: what she had walked through. I'm almost fifty five, and
Speaker 1: I can tell y'all I have yet to meet a
Speaker 1: woman who has struggled with abuse or solicitation who asked
Speaker 1: for a prostitute barbie when she was five or six
Speaker 1: years old. We are so quick in the church to
Speaker 1: turn our noses down at people who use different things
Speaker 1: to medicate their pain instead of recognizing, you know when
Speaker 1: I'm not condoning the sin. But Lord have mercy, what
Speaker 1: led them to medicate that way? Let me pray for that.
Speaker 1: Let me see the wounded little girl and the wounded
Speaker 1: little boy that drove them to that trajectory. Spent seven
Speaker 1: months with this kid, desperately hoped she would come to
Speaker 1: know Jesus get in recovery. We formed a really close relationship.
Speaker 1: I told all my friends in Nashville, don't throw me
Speaker 1: any baby showers. I said, this is such a precarious adoption.
Speaker 1: The doctors are saying it will be an absolute miracle
Speaker 1: if she carries the baby to term, if the baby
Speaker 1: even survives, because she just it and let go of
Speaker 1: the crack. And I said, so, don't give me any gifts.
Speaker 1: Just pray, just pray that God's will will be done,
Speaker 1: that first of all, Marie will be rescued from the
Speaker 1: life that she's just ensneered in. And pray for the
Speaker 1: baby's health. But don't give me any baby gifts. Well,
Speaker 1: a week before Marie was going to be induced, I
Speaker 1: got a phone call from the adoption agency and she said, Lisa,
Speaker 1: it is great news. She said, every tea has been crossed,
Speaker 1: every eye has been dotted. You're going to bring Anna
Speaker 1: Price home. Marie had let me name her baby girl,
Speaker 1: and I named her Anna after Anna and Luke chapter two.
Speaker 1: You remember she was the prophetess who waited and waited
Speaker 1: and waited, held on to her hope for a real
Speaker 1: hero in Jesus. And so I so admire Anna. And
Speaker 1: then my little brother's middle name is Price, and our
Speaker 1: family's a little Jerry springer Ish, and so I thought
Speaker 1: that'll kind of redeem our family's lineage, and so I
Speaker 1: named her Anna price. The adoption agent said, you're going
Speaker 1: to get to bring Enterprise home, and I was like,
Speaker 1: you are kidney, and she said no, she said, actually,
Speaker 1: all the entities involved have agreed that you were the
Speaker 1: only one legally allowed to bring her home from the hospital.
Speaker 1: So when I got off the phone with the adoption agent,
Speaker 1: I immediately called my mom and I said, Mama, you're
Speaker 1: going to have a granddaughter, because my sister has two boys,
Speaker 1: my little brother has a son, and that would be
Speaker 1: Enterprise was going to be my mom's first granddaughter. And
Speaker 1: so we cried on the phone. We were both so excited,
Speaker 1: so excited at what God had redeemed in the story.
Speaker 1: Got off phone with my mom, called two or three
Speaker 1: other friends. We all cried, because guys, that's what women
Speaker 1: do who were happy, even when you have not one
Speaker 1: cell of estrogen left in your body. We just it's
Speaker 1: still is kind of the thing we do when we're happy.
Speaker 1: And so anyway, we all cried on the phone. And
Speaker 1: then when I got off the third phone call, there
Speaker 1: was a knock at the door. I go to the door.
Speaker 1: It's the upa guy and he hands me this big
Speaker 1: box and I saw him the return address. It was
Speaker 1: from a friend of mine in Atlanta, and I opened
Speaker 1: it up and her note basically said, I know you
Speaker 1: told us not to give you any baby gifts, but
Speaker 1: she said, Lisa, I know, like I know my name,
Speaker 1: that you're going to bring in a price home. And
Speaker 1: I also know that the generational sin and her family
Speaker 1: is going to end with you, and that's why I'm
Speaker 1: giving you this gift, because I believe there's going to
Speaker 1: be purity infused in the rest of her life. And
Speaker 1: she give me a miniature white fur coat. Yeah, her
Speaker 1: husband has done really well. And I sat back down
Speaker 1: on the couch and I cried harder because nobody's ever
Speaker 1: given me a fur coat. And then a few minutes later,
Speaker 1: the phone rings again and I saw from caller Idea
Speaker 1: it was the adoption agent, and I thought, I've just
Speaker 1: forgotten to send in some paperwork and I probably need
Speaker 1: to sign something and scan it and send it to her.
Speaker 1: But as soon as I heard her voice, I knew
Speaker 1: it was good news. And I'm not at liberty to
Speaker 1: tell y'all what happened, the details of what happened, but
Speaker 1: the bottom line is the bottom fell out of our
Speaker 1: adoption and we lost that little mama. She did not
Speaker 1: go in recovery, and I lost enterprise. And I don't
Speaker 1: have words to wrap around what I felt in that moment.
Speaker 1: I felt like my heart had been just cut outside
Speaker 1: of my chest. And I don't know how long I
Speaker 1: sat there crying. They weren't happy tears anymore. Where the
Speaker 1: phone rang again, a song caller idea. It was my mom,
Speaker 1: and I thought, oh, good night, I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: my mama that she's not going to have a granddaughter.
Speaker 1: After all, I don't have the emotional wherewithal to even talk,
Speaker 1: much less explain what just happened. And then I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, if I don't answer the phone, my mama
Speaker 1: is just going to keep calling. I don't know if
Speaker 1: y'all's mama is like that. And then I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: if I don't answer after about thirty minutes, she's going
Speaker 1: to call nine one one, And so I thought I
Speaker 1: need to go ahead and deal with this. And I thought,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to keep it short, and I said hey, Mama,
Speaker 1: and she didn't even notice that my voice was broken.
Speaker 1: She just real quickly said, baby, I'm so sorry to
Speaker 1: call you with bad news on such a celebratory day,
Speaker 1: but I'm scared and I need you to pray. She said,
Speaker 1: I just got off the phone with my doctor and
Speaker 1: she said, what we thought was an ongoing bladder infection
Speaker 1: is actually appendiceal cancer. And she said, Honey, the cancer
Speaker 1: is metastasized to at least three of my major organs
Speaker 1: and my prognosis isn't good, and I'm scared and I
Speaker 1: need you to pray for me. So I just prayed
Speaker 1: on the phone with my mom. At that point, I
Speaker 1: didn't tell her about losing Enterprise. Got off the phone,
Speaker 1: and just a few minutes after that it rang again.
Speaker 1: I saw it as my daddy. My mom and my
Speaker 1: dad divorced when I was five years old, long acrimonious divorce,
Speaker 1: so my dad didn't know anything about my mom and
Speaker 1: my dad. I hadn't told him that morning about Enterprise,
Speaker 1: and I thought, oh, goodness gracious, and I just can't
Speaker 1: deal with my daddy right now. But he's kind of
Speaker 1: like my mama, and that he would just keep calling,
Speaker 1: and I thought, I'm just going to try to keep
Speaker 1: it short, and I said, hey, Dad, and he said, honey,
Speaker 1: I need your help. He said, I just got home
Speaker 1: from my surgeon and he said, they did the scans again.
Speaker 1: My father battled colon cancer successfully, we thought five years previously.
Speaker 1: And he said, honey, the cancer's back. It's in my
Speaker 1: lungs and it's in my bones, and doctor's given me
Speaker 1: two months to live. He said, Now, I'm okay, I'm
Speaker 1: totally fine. I know exactly where I'm going, but I'm
Speaker 1: worried about your sister. So I want you to get
Speaker 1: on the phone. I want you to explain this to
Speaker 1: your sister. I told y'all we're Jerry Springer. And so
Speaker 1: I prayed with my dad, got off the phone with
Speaker 1: my dad, and I just collapsed on the couch and
Speaker 1: I don't know how long I sat there. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just thought, I don't know if I'm ever going
Speaker 1: to be able to peel my heart up off the pavement.
Speaker 1: And I thought, Lord, you've picked the wrong girl. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not this faithful. You needed to get Chris Caine
Speaker 1: or Holli Ferdict for this. I mean, I can't, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to walk this well. And then I just
Speaker 1: had kind of this jarring epiphany of oh, good night,
Speaker 1: I've got an early flight in the morning because I
Speaker 1: have to go to Kansas City and speak at a
Speaker 1: conference for Christian leaders on the faithfulness of God. And
Speaker 1: I thought, Lord, I'm not sure I can even make
Speaker 1: it to the plane, much less speak honestly about your
Speaker 1: faithfulness when I feel like my heart has been cut
Speaker 1: out of my chest. Y'all, here's who our Jesus is.
Speaker 1: He is not a fair weather friend. We don't have
Speaker 1: a bridegroom who stands in front of the judge and says,
Speaker 1: for better, that's all, just for better, like I'm out
Speaker 1: if worse comes. That's not who our bridegroom is. Jesus
Speaker 1: says when your heart is broken, I'm right there. When
Speaker 1: you feel like you're crushed. I am near to you,
Speaker 1: when you can't walk, I will carry you. My love
Speaker 1: for you will not fade, and it will not fail,
Speaker 1: even when your faith is fickle or frail or broken.
Speaker 1: I'm right here. I'm not leaving so that you will
Speaker 1: not be destroyed Malachi three to six. His hope, y'all,
Speaker 1: is immutable. It doesn't change. We change, We wax and
Speaker 1: wayne depending on our circumstances, but he doesn't. His love
Speaker 1: is said fast, and that's exactly what job comes to.
Speaker 1: It's exactly what I came to the next morning. You know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't even hard to stand up and say, our
Speaker 1: God is faithful, because even the next morning, after I
Speaker 1: felt like I lost most of my heart, I could
Speaker 1: look back over my life and go, I've never seen
Speaker 1: us back. I have never seen God's back. He is
Speaker 1: a good God. He's a faithful God. He's kind. He
Speaker 1: has never left my side. Even when I am in
Speaker 1: the pit. His presence sustains me. Right after Job says
Speaker 1: I can't take this anymore, there's this sharp turn, and
Speaker 1: he says next what most of us know because we've
Speaker 1: heard Nicole Mullen sing it. He says, verse twenty five four,
Speaker 1: I know that my Redeemer lives. I'm at the deepest
Speaker 1: point of the pit, but I know my Redeemer lives.
Speaker 1: I know he lives. And at the last he will
Speaker 1: stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been
Speaker 1: thus destroyed, after my metabolism has thus been shot yet
Speaker 1: in my saggy flesh, that's just a little liberty with
Speaker 1: the Hebrew. I shall see God, whom I shall see
Speaker 1: for myself, the Psalmist says, when I see him face
Speaker 1: to face, it'll be enough. And y'all, what's so interesting
Speaker 1: about what Job says here about his redeemer. The word
Speaker 1: he uses there for redeemer and Hebrew is go well,
Speaker 1: and it's most commonly translated kinsman redeemer. And most of
Speaker 1: y'all know a Kinsman redeemer could rescue somebody in their family.
Speaker 1: Didn't have to be a close family member, could be
Speaker 1: like a seventeenth cousin. But if you were somewhere in
Speaker 1: the family circle of a Kinsman redeemer, they could rescue
Speaker 1: you from a minor emergency. Like girls, Let's just say
Speaker 1: you got all fired up about a shoe sale at
Speaker 1: the rack and you ran your visa up to high.
Speaker 1: You could text your Kinsman redeemer and say, I am
Speaker 1: in trouble. I'm not going to be able to to
Speaker 1: pray the rent next month, but I got some pretty shoes,
Speaker 1: and your Kinsman redeemer could say, I'm going to pay
Speaker 1: off your debt and don't go to the rat for
Speaker 1: a while, but I'm gonna pay off your debt, so
Speaker 1: they could rescue you from a minor emergency, or if
Speaker 1: you had a major emergency, let's say you're facing incarceration,
Speaker 1: your Kinsman Redeemer could stand between you and the judge
Speaker 1: and plead, plead for leniency, or they could even take
Speaker 1: your incarceration, your punishment upon themselves. Y'all know Ruth's story,
Speaker 1: you know, bo as her kins Redeemer redeemed her from
Speaker 1: a life of poverty and shame as a widow, as
Speaker 1: a childless widow. And then they, after they got married,
Speaker 1: had a son named Obed. Thirty nine generations later, Jesus see,
Speaker 1: the ultimate Kinsman Redeemer was born through their lineage. So
Speaker 1: Job says, my kinsman redeemer, my go Well is coming
Speaker 1: for me. So that's normal, relatively speaking. Actually, in that
Speaker 1: era of history, they didn't even use the word redeemer.
Speaker 1: But God makes the veil thin in pain, doesn't he.
Speaker 1: If we'll look up, you'll actually see him more clearly
Speaker 1: when you age than you do when everything's unky dory.
Speaker 1: He says, my Kinsman Redeemer is coming. What's curious about
Speaker 1: this is in chapter sixteen he said God is my accuser.
Speaker 1: God go Well is the one who has brought this
Speaker 1: calamity upon me. So it's curious that he would say
Speaker 1: God is both the one who has punished me and
Speaker 1: the one who is going to redeem me? Unless unless
Speaker 1: job saw what we know now because of where we
Speaker 1: are in redemptive history. Unless job saw one is coming,
Speaker 1: who is going to shrug into the orange jump suit
Speaker 1: meant for me? So God, my judge does wear the
Speaker 1: black robe of perfect, holy, divine judge, and he has
Speaker 1: brought this upon me in his sovereignty. But Jesus is coming,
Speaker 1: and he's going to redeem me. And when I see
Speaker 1: him faced faith, it's going to be enough. My redeemer
Speaker 1: is coming, y'all. It's amazing what obseas You know, he
Speaker 1: uses Messianic terminology in this book that's a thousand years
Speaker 1: before the birth of Christ. He uses Messianic terminology that
Speaker 1: she used nowhere else in that period of literature. He
Speaker 1: sees Jesus is coming. Jesus is coming, that's his posture.
Speaker 1: If we would get that in the pit, if we
Speaker 1: look up, we will see Jesus more clearly than ever before.
Speaker 1: We would not fear pain. Now I'm not saying we'd
Speaker 1: all be massive massochist or sayis, but we would go
Speaker 1: you know what, this too, somehow, this too will be
Speaker 1: for my good and for his glory. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: walk it. I'm not gonna try to get around it.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna hide, I'm not gonna numb. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna walk it because he thinks I'm strong enough for this,
Speaker 1: and I'm so grateful my God has such a high,
Speaker 1: high expectation of me. So I'm gonna walk it as
Speaker 1: well as I can. I'm gonna be honest about it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna bring all of me to all of him,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna be honest about it. Two weeks after
Speaker 1: I lost Enterprise, I was in a waiting room hospital
Speaker 1: waiting room in Orlando, Florida, waiting to hear from the
Speaker 1: surgeon who was operating on my mama. And after four
Speaker 1: and a half hours, he called and he said, Lisa,
Speaker 1: I've got mostly good news. He said, most of the
Speaker 1: cancer was encapsulated. He said, we weren't able to get
Speaker 1: all of it, but we got most of it. He said,
Speaker 1: here's the deal. Your mama will die, but she's going
Speaker 1: to die of old age. She's not going to die
Speaker 1: from the cancer. He said, so I've got a good report. Well.
Speaker 1: Two days later, that same surgeon called and he said, Lisa,
Speaker 1: the cancer was successful, but your mother is doing poorly.
Speaker 1: He said, your mother's numbers continue to plummet. He said,
Speaker 1: I think she was so weak coming into the surgery
Speaker 1: that her body just can't handle such a difficult surgery.
Speaker 1: And he said, if her numbers don't turn around in
Speaker 1: the next twenty four hours, we're going to lose your mother.
Speaker 1: He said, I know you to be a woman of faith,
Speaker 1: and so I would just encourage you to pray well.
Speaker 1: My sister and I were keeping visual over my mom's bed.
Speaker 1: She was still in ICU, had barely been conscious since
Speaker 1: she had come out of surgery, and that afternoon my
Speaker 1: mom roused just a little bit and she whispered, I
Speaker 1: need to see your father. My sister looked at me,
Speaker 1: and I looked at her, and she went, you because
Speaker 1: our dad, my stepfather, John Angel, who my mom married
Speaker 1: when I was six years old, he had passed away
Speaker 1: the year before, and we thought Mama was just so
Speaker 1: addled from the morphine that she didn't remember that he
Speaker 1: had passed away. And so I leaned over mom and
Speaker 1: I tried to say as gently as I could, my mom,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but daddy Daddy passed away. I remember Daddy.
Speaker 1: Daddy died last year, and she said not that father.
Speaker 1: And my sister and I were just stunned. My mom
Speaker 1: and my daddy hadn't spoken really in forty years, and
Speaker 1: there's no love loss between my mom and my dad Harper.
Speaker 1: So I walked outside of her hospital room. I called
Speaker 1: my daddy. This is the one who had the lung
Speaker 1: cancer and it was in his bones. And I said, Daddy,
Speaker 1: you know Mama is out of surgery, but she's not
Speaker 1: doing well. And he said okay. And I said the
Speaker 1: doctor told us if her numbers don't change and the
Speaker 1: next day, we're likely to lose her. And I said, Daddy,
Speaker 1: she's she's asking for you, and he said all right.
Speaker 1: He said, give me about an hour and I'll be there.
Speaker 1: My dad was a little man, about five seven, one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty pounds, soaking wet. I got my mama's jeans,
Speaker 1: and he put himself through college, busting bronx in the rodeo.
Speaker 1: Because he was little, but he was tough. It's like
Speaker 1: John Wayne Junior. And he comes swaggering down the hospital
Speaker 1: corridor and he comes up to my sister and I
Speaker 1: were standing outside of my mom's room, and he goes
Speaker 1: Lisa Teresa, I love you, girls, but I need some
Speaker 1: privacy with your mother. So she y'all need to stay
Speaker 1: out here. And he walks in to be with my mama,
Speaker 1: and I was like, we're going to be on the news.
Speaker 1: I guess he's going to go in and put a
Speaker 1: pillow over her head. I was like, this is awful.
Speaker 1: He's in there. About twenty minutes, he comes out and
Speaker 1: he says, girls, I love you. Your Mama's going to
Speaker 1: be all right. I'll be back here same time tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Swagger's off welly go busting into her room to make
Speaker 1: sure she's still breathing, and Mama's sitting up for the
Speaker 1: first time since before the surgery. She's got color back
Speaker 1: in her face, and she said, girls, your father annoyed
Speaker 1: me with oil. I'm going to be fine. Two days later.
Speaker 1: Two days later, they released my mom from the hospital.
Speaker 1: But that's not the huge miracle. She was with me
Speaker 1: last week in Nashville, Tennessee. She's eighty one. She walks
Speaker 1: six miles a day. That's that's not the biggest miracle.
Speaker 1: The biggest miracle is from April of twenty twelve until
Speaker 1: February fifth of twenty thirteen, my mama and my daddy,
Speaker 1: who had been a strain for forty years. They talked
Speaker 1: on the phone every single day or they saw each other.
Speaker 1: My mama is the very last person who was sitting
Speaker 1: next to my father's deathbed, holding his hand and reading
Speaker 1: the Bible to my daddy. It was a redemption and
Speaker 1: it was a healing. It was a miracle that I
Speaker 1: didn't even have the faith to pray for. And I
Speaker 1: thought only God, only God could bring this kind of
Speaker 1: glory out of that kind of heartache. Only God. Two
Speaker 1: days before my mama went into surgery, I got a
Speaker 1: phone call and it was from a friend of mine
Speaker 1: who had just been to Haiti, and she Sai, at least,
Speaker 1: I know you're still grieving in a price. But I
Speaker 1: just got back from Haiti and one of the young
Speaker 1: mama's died of AIDS and there's a little girl that
Speaker 1: she left behind who's two years old. She has HIV,
Speaker 1: in cholera and tuberculosis. The doctors have given her two
Speaker 1: months to live. And I just wondered if you would
Speaker 1: be willing to pray about being her mama, And I said, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not willing to pray about it. I've been praying
Speaker 1: about this for thirty years. You sign me up, y'all.
Speaker 1: I did not know. I did not know that the
Speaker 1: greatest redemption and restoration of my life would come after
Speaker 1: a river of tears. And that's what I've come back
Speaker 1: to tell y'all. I want to bring you a good report.
Speaker 1: If you are in a difficult season, maybe, like young Lauren,
Speaker 1: you just feel like I need better friends. I've got
Speaker 1: some miserable comforters like job. Maybe you long for your
Speaker 1: marriage to be as close as it once was. Maybe
Speaker 1: you just need a job. I want to encourage you
Speaker 1: to stay the course. Your redeemer has already come for you.
Speaker 1: Your redeemer will restore what seems irreparably broken. Your redeemer
Speaker 1: is enough, but stand it and worship the fact that
Speaker 1: God never leaves us, He will never fail us. His
Speaker 1: presence is enough. Well. I hope you enjoyed the podcast today.
Speaker 1: If you did, there are just a couple things I'd
Speaker 1: love for you to do. Number One, subscribe to our show.
Speaker 1: That way, the most recent episode will always be in
Speaker 1: your feed, waiting for you ready when you are. And Secondly,
Speaker 1: if this ministry has impacted you and you'd like to
Speaker 1: help us continue to reach others. You can click the
Speaker 1: link in the description and you can give now and
Speaker 1: I'll see you next time on the Elevation Podcast.