My Redeemer Lives

and preachers at conferences in women's events today. She's a gifted author, and I think you're gonna really love how she makes the Bible just come alive when she teaches. And I also think you're going to be encouraged hearing God's goodness and faithfulness towards her and her family. She has an amazing story, and in fact, she brought a video just to share a little bit about what God has done in her family's life. So we're gonna watch that.

Then she's going to be up here to preach. And so when this video is done and she takes the stage, let's give her the best Elevation Church welcome possible. Are you ready to hear from God today? All right, you guys can take a seat, take a look at the screens. In April twenty twelve, I jumped off a proverbial cliff and into the greatest adventure and joy of my life. I began the process of adopting my little girl, Melissa

Price Harper. I love you. Her first mama, Marie, died as a result of undiagnosed days when Missy was just a baby, unwittingly infecting her with HIV, which was exacerbated by a tuberculosis, severe malnutrition, and a host of other ailments. Doctors Importer Prince didn't give Missy much of a chance, but then again they didn't know. My baby girl has

the heart of a warrior. Our adoption process took two long years, but I finally got to bring her home to Tennessee on April fourteenth, two thy fourteen, just a few days before Easter, which seemed especially fit girl. And her name was Missy and she was so sutt We and her mama came to Haiti and said, that's my baby. Brought her home to tennis See. Yeah. Yeah, every single day since has been better than the one before. By the grace of God in great medical care, Missy's health

is now excellent. Her HIV is completely undetectable, and her lungs have no scars from the tuberculosis she suffered from as a toddler. She even has killer ABS, which is really the only dead giveaway She's not my biological child. We're surrounded by an incredible community of friends and family. Missy has more doting aunts and uncles than just about any kid I know. Plus we've had the joy of getting to go back to the village she's from and Haiti and share the love of Christ with her extended

family members. Psalm sixty eight declares that God is a father to the fatherless, a husband to the husbandless, and he places the lonely in families. That's definitely our story and I plan on praising Him over it for the rest of my life. That's lot of kisses. I didn't kiss you a lot, though, yes, a little bit kissed you. No way, no way, I'm coming kiss monsters, We're coming after you. Hey, do you know why I kiss you? Why?

Why do you think because you love me? How much do you think I love you more than the whole world? Yep about that much is even wider. No way, that's fine, No way, no way, y'all. Oh, please be seated, Please be seated. And so tickled to be here. I cannot even tell you how honored I am to be here. Please please please sit down. You're going to be mad at me in a minute. Anyway. I'm just undone. I feel like a donkey at the Kentucky Derby because I

love Elevation Church. I watch y'all online all the time from Nashville, deeply, deeply respect what God has done through Holly and Pastor Stephen, and y'all feel like you'll just epitomize christ admonition to be a city on a hill, to be a light to the world. So the fact

that I get to be here just undoes me. I do want to bring two qualifications because my main prayer leading up to this was that I wouldn't unwittingly throw a monkey wrench into what God is doing through y'all and through your campuses, and so I need to go ahead and qualify two things. One is I'm old. I'm much much older than Pastor Steven or most of your pastoral staff. And I'm also going through what some would

call the Change, which is probably TMI, gentlemen. But the reason I tell you that is because during the change, I've developed a spiritual gift called projectile perspiration, and I can pretty much aim where I'm in a sweat and because it's one hundred and forty five degrees today and I'm in a fluffy season, that has exacerbated my spiritual gift. And so y'all are going to get wet, all of you. We're going to call this sea world in Charlotte. And I think we just vote that it's a baptism. It's

just an extra baptism. So that's my first qualification. The second qualification is we're going to talk this morning about the immutable, that is the unchanging hope of Christ. But the way we're going to get there is through a true story in scripture that some equate with sticking your hand in a blender. And so I need you to hang with me when I tell you to turn in your Bibles to the Book of Job. So turning the

Old Testament to the true Story of Job. If you'll head to the Psalms and then just back up, you'll hit Job. Usually it's not a book. We're super familiar with women. We never cross stitch this one because it's a hard story. It's a tough story. I so appreciate that Pastor Zach said that this had been a difficult week because I think all too often in Christian circles we act like once we commit our lives to Christ, everything's perfect, and I'm like, that's not even biblically sound.

Jesus said, in this world you will have trouble. He is a good God. Life can be incredibly hard. Sometimes you you lose your metabolism and your hair is comically dependent. But that's just me. Y'all have different kind of grief. She've been through. And I think we do the world a disservice when as christ followers we pretend like we never struggle anymore. I think that's one of the reasons they think we're big fat hypocrites, is because we aren't hon Us about the places where we need Jesus to

carry us. I was at a women's event recently and I asked a woman how I could pray for her, and she said, oh, no, I don't need prayer, and I was like, you're about to, because I'm gonna punch you in the throat for being a liar. There are seasons in our life where it is appropriate for us to say, Lord, I'm not sure I can handle this. I'm not sure I can hike up this hill in front of me. Apart from you carrying me, I'm not gonna make it through the next season of my life.

Job says exactly that. Now y'all probably know his story. He's a really good guy. In the first chapter, it says that he is a righteous man. He's an upright man. Some translations say he's a perfect man. That doesn't mean he's sinless. That just means he's a good guy. It says that he's living a good life. If you study all of his acquisitions, he lived in the patriarchal period

or pre patriarchal period. They aren't sure exactly when this story took place, but it was some time between fifteen hundred and a thousand years before the birth of Christ, so long time ago. And if you study his acquisitions based on that context, it proves that he had about eleven thousand servants if you include women and children. He had vast agricultural holdings, and most of his wealth was based in agriculture, which I love that because I'm old

and this will just telegraph my age. I'm about to fifty five, but I am not attracted to men and skinny jeans. I'm much more attracted to a guy in wranglers, like with a John Deere. And that's I mean, that's just me, but could be while I'm fifty four and single. But anyway, that's kind of job. You know. He's this good guy. He's living a good life. He's got like a fleet of John Deere's. There's a fish sticker on

all of his John Deere's. He's wearing wranglers. The knees are worn out, and his wranglers from praying because also in chapter one it says it is his continual habit to pray for his family. He has seven sons, three daughters, and it says it is his continual habit. In chapter one. Most translations say early every morning, but that's Hebrew idiom.

That just means it was his continual habit. So he didn't necessarily set his iPhone for five thirty every morning to get up and pray for his family, but it was his continual habit. So he's a good guy. He's doing good things with his life. He's living a good life. And one of my favorite commentators says, Job was not filthy rich, he was clean rich because he used a lot of his wealth to help the poor and the underprivileged,

underserve the marginalized. So this is this kind of great beginning of a story, and then it turns into a train wreck because right after we're taught all these things about this true guy. This is not metaphor, this is a historical tale. This really happened. Right after we read those things, we find out Job loses everything through no fault of his own. As a matter of fact, I don't have time to go here. This is a rabbit trail. I hope it's redemptive. But God actually is the one

who causes Job's loss. And we tend to think if I put the right quarter in God's coke machine, I'll get everything I want. What we don't bargain for is sometimes God wants to purify us in pain as a conduit for that. Sometimes God will prune us and it hurts like a dog, and he says, honey, all you can experience right now now is the pain. What you can't see because you're human and you see through the glass dimily is around the corner from this, this pruning

is going to cause prolific growth in your life. If we could begin to trust that sometimes not all the times. I would never say evil as divinely causive. I would never say God caused cancer or car wrecks. That's just foolishness. But sometimes the pain we walk through is directly from God. In the case of Job, he held Job up to that lion lizard we call Satan and says, have you considered my servant Job? His uprightness did not cause him to be immune from difficulty. It actually promoted him to

difficulty because God said, I know this guy. I know the way he's going to walk through this difficult season. It's going to bring me glory, y'all. It would blow our hard drive if we would begin to change our perspective on pain and go some of That's what I'm walking through is because God thinks that I can handle it in a way that eventually I'll bear more fruit and I will bring him glory. So instead of trying to numb it or get around it or whine about it,

I'm just going to walk toward him. In the midst of this Job loses everything he's accumulated, all of his wealth, all of his servants die, all ten of his children are killed. And on the heels of that horrific tragedy, his wife says, and you probably remember this, you may as well curse God and die. Now she's vilified in church culture, has been since the beginning of church culture.

But I don't actually take much offense with missus Job, because I can't imagine how I would react if something happen to Missy and this mama has just lost ten all ten of her children, and so the fact that she reacts like that, I think, you know, I probably would have cut him. So the fact that all she says, as you may as well curse God and die, I think that makes sense to me for a mama who's

in grief and in shock. Job meanwhile says nothing. He loses all of this, loses his health, his wealth, loses his family loses everybody loves except for his grumpy wife. And his response, we're told at the end of chapter one, is he shaves his head, he tears his robe. Those were signs of extreme grief in this era. And then

it says he worships isn't that beautiful y'all? Because usually we think to be in grief, or to be sad, or to be even depressed, that that is the opposite end of the spectrum of worship, and God says no, to have a broken heart and raised hands, that's actually

the same continuum. As a matter of fact, I think it is a deeper, more sacrificial worship to worship like kubbacic in job though if it feels like you are slaying me yet, well, I still raise my hands and sing Hallelujah, because even though I don't understand while I'm walking through this, I trust that You're a good God, and I trust that ultimately, ultimately, all of this is for my good and for your glory. Asaiah calls that blind faith. Sometimes it's actually just put one foot in

front of the other. Do you know that perky is not listed as a spiritual gift? You know? I used to think it was. I used to think there was this continuum and there were emotions that were approved by God, and those were like the happy, perky emotions, No, I'm doing great, victory, victory, and then the emotions over here that were Man, it's tough, I know, Jesus will bring the victory. I'm victory minded, but man, today I am in the pit, i'd be like, you know what, you're

just opposed that Christian. That's inappropriate to see that those two God oftentimes brings them together. And so if you praise me when everything's going great, well good, it's kind of like Luke six. If you love those who love you until you look skinny in those genes, what good is it to you? But if you praise me, and if you love people who don't love you, well, that actually is more pure and undefiled worship. And that's where job is. He's being honest about his stuff. He's saying

this hurts. I don't like this. I didn't pray for this, I didn't dream of this, But I trust you, I'm still gonna worship you. He's being honest. He's bringing all of him to all of God. He's not editing and just bringing the part of him that's perky to God. He's bringing all of him to all of God. I appreciated Lauren's testimony that she said, I thought if I transferred schools, maybe a new peer group would make me feel better. Y'all, some of us feel the same way,

even though we're older than Lauren. If only I had better friends, if only I had a promotion, if only I got the proposal I've been hanging on for. Some of us are always thinking, if I got that greener grass, then I'd be hopeful, And I'm like, man, we need a bigger hero, don't we. Because the hero we've got to hold on for is Jesus, our Redeemer, King Jesus, who eclipses these momentary things we think will give us hope and healing. He's so much bigger than a peer group.

He's so much better than a promotion or a proposal. He is what our souls long for most. And even though Job was suffering well, he, like us, sees through the glass dimily, so he didn't always get it. God says he didn't sin in his grief, and y'all, it's important for us to know that grief is not sin. Where we go in our grief is where we get in trouble. And I'm going to say one thing, and I hope I don't get eggs thrown at me for this, But healthy grief, godly grief, does not demand an audience

or applause. Healthy grief. Godly grief does not demand an audience or applause. We've gotten so used to airing our aches and pains on social media, and if we don't get enough likes or enough follows, we think nobody's being nice to me. And I'm like, God never intended us to bring all of ourselves to all of humanity. He's like, no, you bring all of you to all of me. I'm the one who has healing. I'm the one who has healing.

If you feel compelled when you ache to run to social media before you run to your savior, y'all, that's not real grief. That's actually self indulgent whiny. We have got to run to Jesus first. Jesus is our hope. Now, before I totally grind your toe into the carpeting, I want to encourage those of you who feel like you're stuck in a Hawhini season. That job epitomizes that too. Job Chapter nineteen, verse thirteen. This is the Nator. This is the very bottom of his experience. He is at

the deepest level of the pit. And here's what he says. It's not perky at all interesting that God says he didn't sin here because I want you to listen to how depressed he is. He has put my brothers far from me, and those who knew me are holy. Is strange for me. This is job Chapter nineteen, verse thirteen, verse fourteen. My relatives have failed me. My close friends have forgotten me. The guest in my house and my maid servants count me as a stranger. I've become a

foreigner in their eyes. I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer. I must plead with him with my mouth for mercy. My breath is strange to my wife. That's not a great translation. Better translation is King James, my breath is offensive to my wife. In other words, they are not sleeping in the same bed he's on the couch. They are not getting jiggy with it, even though they are married. Even young children despise me.

When I rise. They talk against me. All my intimate friends abhor me, and those whom I loved have turned against me. I've got nothing, no friends, no home, no reputation. I've got nothing. I feel absolutely despondent. Have you ever been there, ever been in the place, so you think I can put on a happy face at church, But man, I hate what I'm facing when I go home. This

is a little more than I bargained for. I started the adoption process when I was in my late forties and I got matched initially with a precious young woman who was a prostitute and hardcore crack addict. Till the adoption agent. I don't want a kid that it's the chance, a good chance at a mom and a dad. I

think that's best case scenario. So I would much rather be considered for a child who doesn't have much of a shot, because, in my opinion, as a single woman, best case scenario for a kid is to have a mama and a daddy. And I said, so, if there's a child who doesn't look like they have a great shot for that, then I think maybe a fluffy single woman in Tennessee would be a better option than death in a third world orphanage or in a precarious situation

of states. And I got match with this precious kid, hardcore crack addict. I spent seven months in relationship with her. I spent Christmas that year in the crackhouse because when I was with her, she used a lot less and I just fell in love with this little mama because she was desperate twenty three years old. Don't have time to tell you her backstory, but I will tell you if I had her backstory, I would be very tempted to abuse narcotics as well to numb the pain of

what she had walked through. I'm almost fifty five, and I can tell y'all I have yet to meet a woman who has struggled with abuse or solicitation who asked for a prostitute barbie when she was five or six years old. We are so quick in the church to turn our noses down at people who use different things to medicate their pain instead of recognizing, you know when I'm not condoning the sin. But Lord have mercy, what led them to medicate that way? Let me pray for that.

Let me see the wounded little girl and the wounded little boy that drove them to that trajectory. Spent seven months with this kid, desperately hoped she would come to know Jesus get in recovery. We formed a really close relationship. I told all my friends in Nashville, don't throw me any baby showers. I said, this is such a precarious adoption. The doctors are saying it will be an absolute miracle if she carries the baby to term, if the baby even survives, because she just it and let go of

the crack. And I said, so, don't give me any gifts. Just pray, just pray that God's will will be done, that first of all, Marie will be rescued from the life that she's just ensneered in. And pray for the baby's health. But don't give me any baby gifts. Well, a week before Marie was going to be induced, I got a phone call from the adoption agency and she said, Lisa, it is great news. She said, every tea has been crossed, every eye has been dotted. You're going to bring Anna

Price home. Marie had let me name her baby girl, and I named her Anna after Anna and Luke chapter two. You remember she was the prophetess who waited and waited and waited, held on to her hope for a real hero in Jesus. And so I so admire Anna. And then my little brother's middle name is Price, and our family's a little Jerry springer Ish, and so I thought that'll kind of redeem our family's lineage, and so I

named her Anna price. The adoption agent said, you're going to get to bring Enterprise home, and I was like, you are kidney, and she said no, she said, actually, all the entities involved have agreed that you were the only one legally allowed to bring her home from the hospital. So when I got off the phone with the adoption agent, I immediately called my mom and I said, Mama, you're going to have a granddaughter, because my sister has two boys, my little brother has a son, and that would be

Enterprise was going to be my mom's first granddaughter. And so we cried on the phone. We were both so excited, so excited at what God had redeemed in the story. Got off phone with my mom, called two or three other friends. We all cried, because guys, that's what women do who were happy, even when you have not one cell of estrogen left in your body. We just it's still is kind of the thing we do when we're happy.

And so anyway, we all cried on the phone. And then when I got off the third phone call, there was a knock at the door. I go to the door. It's the upa guy and he hands me this big box and I saw him the return address. It was from a friend of mine in Atlanta, and I opened it up and her note basically said, I know you told us not to give you any baby gifts, but she said, Lisa, I know, like I know my name,

that you're going to bring in a price home. And I also know that the generational sin and her family is going to end with you, and that's why I'm giving you this gift, because I believe there's going to be purity infused in the rest of her life. And she give me a miniature white fur coat. Yeah, her husband has done really well. And I sat back down on the couch and I cried harder because nobody's ever

given me a fur coat. And then a few minutes later, the phone rings again and I saw from caller Idea it was the adoption agent, and I thought, I've just forgotten to send in some paperwork and I probably need to sign something and scan it and send it to her. But as soon as I heard her voice, I knew it was good news. And I'm not at liberty to tell y'all what happened, the details of what happened, but the bottom line is the bottom fell out of our adoption and we lost that little mama. She did not

go in recovery, and I lost enterprise. And I don't have words to wrap around what I felt in that moment. I felt like my heart had been just cut outside of my chest. And I don't know how long I sat there crying. They weren't happy tears anymore. Where the phone rang again, a song caller idea. It was my mom, and I thought, oh, good night, I'm going to tell my mama that she's not going to have a granddaughter. After all, I don't have the emotional wherewithal to even talk,

much less explain what just happened. And then I thought, you know, if I don't answer the phone, my mama is just going to keep calling. I don't know if y'all's mama is like that. And then I thought, you know, if I don't answer after about thirty minutes, she's going to call nine one one, And so I thought I need to go ahead and deal with this. And I thought, I'm just going to keep it short, and I said hey, Mama, and she didn't even notice that my voice was broken.

She just real quickly said, baby, I'm so sorry to call you with bad news on such a celebratory day, but I'm scared and I need you to pray. She said, I just got off the phone with my doctor and she said, what we thought was an ongoing bladder infection is actually appendiceal cancer. And she said, Honey, the cancer is metastasized to at least three of my major organs and my prognosis isn't good, and I'm scared and I need you to pray for me. So I just prayed

on the phone with my mom. At that point, I didn't tell her about losing Enterprise. Got off the phone, and just a few minutes after that it rang again. I saw it as my daddy. My mom and my dad divorced when I was five years old, long acrimonious divorce, so my dad didn't know anything about my mom and my dad. I hadn't told him that morning about Enterprise, and I thought, oh, goodness gracious, and I just can't

deal with my daddy right now. But he's kind of like my mama, and that he would just keep calling, and I thought, I'm just going to try to keep it short, and I said, hey, Dad, and he said, honey, I need your help. He said, I just got home from my surgeon and he said, they did the scans again. My father battled colon cancer successfully, we thought five years previously. And he said, honey, the cancer's back. It's in my lungs and it's in my bones, and doctor's given me

two months to live. He said, Now, I'm okay, I'm totally fine. I know exactly where I'm going, but I'm worried about your sister. So I want you to get on the phone. I want you to explain this to your sister. I told y'all we're Jerry Springer. And so I prayed with my dad, got off the phone with my dad, and I just collapsed on the couch and I don't know how long I sat there. I mean, I just thought, I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to peel my heart up off the pavement.

And I thought, Lord, you've picked the wrong girl. I mean, I'm not this faithful. You needed to get Chris Caine or Holli Ferdict for this. I mean, I can't, I'm not going to walk this well. And then I just had kind of this jarring epiphany of oh, good night, I've got an early flight in the morning because I have to go to Kansas City and speak at a

conference for Christian leaders on the faithfulness of God. And I thought, Lord, I'm not sure I can even make it to the plane, much less speak honestly about your faithfulness when I feel like my heart has been cut out of my chest. Y'all, here's who our Jesus is. He is not a fair weather friend. We don't have a bridegroom who stands in front of the judge and says, for better, that's all, just for better, like I'm out if worse comes. That's not who our bridegroom is. Jesus

says when your heart is broken, I'm right there. When you feel like you're crushed. I am near to you, when you can't walk, I will carry you. My love for you will not fade, and it will not fail, even when your faith is fickle or frail or broken. I'm right here. I'm not leaving so that you will not be destroyed Malachi three to six. His hope, y'all, is immutable. It doesn't change. We change, We wax and

wayne depending on our circumstances, but he doesn't. His love is said fast, and that's exactly what job comes to. It's exactly what I came to the next morning. You know, it wasn't even hard to stand up and say, our God is faithful, because even the next morning, after I felt like I lost most of my heart, I could look back over my life and go, I've never seen us back. I have never seen God's back. He is a good God. He's a faithful God. He's kind. He has never left my side. Even when I am in

the pit. His presence sustains me. Right after Job says I can't take this anymore, there's this sharp turn, and he says next what most of us know because we've heard Nicole Mullen sing it. He says, verse twenty five four, I know that my Redeemer lives. I'm at the deepest point of the pit, but I know my Redeemer lives. I know he lives. And at the last he will

stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, after my metabolism has thus been shot yet in my saggy flesh, that's just a little liberty with the Hebrew. I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, the Psalmist says, when I see him face to face, it'll be enough. And y'all, what's so interesting about what Job says here about his redeemer. The word he uses there for redeemer and Hebrew is go well,

and it's most commonly translated kinsman redeemer. And most of y'all know a Kinsman redeemer could rescue somebody in their family. Didn't have to be a close family member, could be like a seventeenth cousin. But if you were somewhere in the family circle of a Kinsman redeemer, they could rescue you from a minor emergency. Like girls, Let's just say you got all fired up about a shoe sale at the rack and you ran your visa up to high. You could text your Kinsman redeemer and say, I am

in trouble. I'm not going to be able to to pray the rent next month, but I got some pretty shoes, and your Kinsman redeemer could say, I'm going to pay off your debt and don't go to the rat for a while, but I'm gonna pay off your debt, so they could rescue you from a minor emergency, or if you had a major emergency, let's say you're facing incarceration, your Kinsman Redeemer could stand between you and the judge and plead, plead for leniency, or they could even take

your incarceration, your punishment upon themselves. Y'all know Ruth's story, you know, bo as her kins Redeemer redeemed her from a life of poverty and shame as a widow, as a childless widow. And then they, after they got married, had a son named Obed. Thirty nine generations later, Jesus see, the ultimate Kinsman Redeemer was born through their lineage. So Job says, my kinsman redeemer, my go Well is coming

for me. So that's normal, relatively speaking. Actually, in that era of history, they didn't even use the word redeemer. But God makes the veil thin in pain, doesn't he. If we'll look up, you'll actually see him more clearly when you age than you do when everything's unky dory. He says, my Kinsman Redeemer is coming. What's curious about this is in chapter sixteen he said God is my accuser. God go Well is the one who has brought this

calamity upon me. So it's curious that he would say God is both the one who has punished me and the one who is going to redeem me? Unless unless job saw what we know now because of where we are in redemptive history. Unless job saw one is coming, who is going to shrug into the orange jump suit meant for me? So God, my judge does wear the black robe of perfect, holy, divine judge, and he has brought this upon me in his sovereignty. But Jesus is coming, and he's going to redeem me. And when I see

him faced faith, it's going to be enough. My redeemer is coming, y'all. It's amazing what obseas You know, he uses Messianic terminology in this book that's a thousand years before the birth of Christ. He uses Messianic terminology that she used nowhere else in that period of literature. He sees Jesus is coming. Jesus is coming, that's his posture. If we would get that in the pit, if we look up, we will see Jesus more clearly than ever before.

We would not fear pain. Now I'm not saying we'd all be massive massochist or sayis, but we would go you know what, this too, somehow, this too will be for my good and for his glory. So I'm gonna walk it. I'm not gonna try to get around it. I'm not gonna hide, I'm not gonna numb. I'm just gonna walk it because he thinks I'm strong enough for this, and I'm so grateful my God has such a high, high expectation of me. So I'm gonna walk it as well as I can. I'm gonna be honest about it.

I'm gonna bring all of me to all of him, but I'm gonna be honest about it. Two weeks after I lost Enterprise, I was in a waiting room hospital waiting room in Orlando, Florida, waiting to hear from the surgeon who was operating on my mama. And after four and a half hours, he called and he said, Lisa, I've got mostly good news. He said, most of the cancer was encapsulated. He said, we weren't able to get all of it, but we got most of it. He said,

here's the deal. Your mama will die, but she's going to die of old age. She's not going to die from the cancer. He said, so I've got a good report. Well. Two days later, that same surgeon called and he said, Lisa, the cancer was successful, but your mother is doing poorly. He said, your mother's numbers continue to plummet. He said, I think she was so weak coming into the surgery that her body just can't handle such a difficult surgery.

And he said, if her numbers don't turn around in the next twenty four hours, we're going to lose your mother. He said, I know you to be a woman of faith, and so I would just encourage you to pray well. My sister and I were keeping visual over my mom's bed. She was still in ICU, had barely been conscious since she had come out of surgery, and that afternoon my mom roused just a little bit and she whispered, I

need to see your father. My sister looked at me, and I looked at her, and she went, you because our dad, my stepfather, John Angel, who my mom married when I was six years old, he had passed away the year before, and we thought Mama was just so addled from the morphine that she didn't remember that he had passed away. And so I leaned over mom and I tried to say as gently as I could, my mom, I'm sorry, but daddy Daddy passed away. I remember Daddy.

Daddy died last year, and she said not that father. And my sister and I were just stunned. My mom and my daddy hadn't spoken really in forty years, and there's no love loss between my mom and my dad Harper. So I walked outside of her hospital room. I called my daddy. This is the one who had the lung cancer and it was in his bones. And I said, Daddy, you know Mama is out of surgery, but she's not doing well. And he said okay. And I said the doctor told us if her numbers don't change and the

next day, we're likely to lose her. And I said, Daddy, she's she's asking for you, and he said all right. He said, give me about an hour and I'll be there. My dad was a little man, about five seven, one hundred and fifty pounds, soaking wet. I got my mama's jeans, and he put himself through college, busting bronx in the rodeo. Because he was little, but he was tough. It's like

John Wayne Junior. And he comes swaggering down the hospital corridor and he comes up to my sister and I were standing outside of my mom's room, and he goes Lisa Teresa, I love you, girls, but I need some privacy with your mother. So she y'all need to stay out here. And he walks in to be with my mama, and I was like, we're going to be on the news. I guess he's going to go in and put a pillow over her head. I was like, this is awful. He's in there. About twenty minutes, he comes out and

he says, girls, I love you. Your Mama's going to be all right. I'll be back here same time tomorrow. Swagger's off welly go busting into her room to make sure she's still breathing, and Mama's sitting up for the first time since before the surgery. She's got color back in her face, and she said, girls, your father annoyed me with oil. I'm going to be fine. Two days later. Two days later, they released my mom from the hospital. But that's not the huge miracle. She was with me

last week in Nashville, Tennessee. She's eighty one. She walks six miles a day. That's that's not the biggest miracle. The biggest miracle is from April of twenty twelve until February fifth of twenty thirteen, my mama and my daddy, who had been a strain for forty years. They talked on the phone every single day or they saw each other. My mama is the very last person who was sitting next to my father's deathbed, holding his hand and reading the Bible to my daddy. It was a redemption and

it was a healing. It was a miracle that I didn't even have the faith to pray for. And I thought only God, only God could bring this kind of glory out of that kind of heartache. Only God. Two days before my mama went into surgery, I got a phone call and it was from a friend of mine who had just been to Haiti, and she Sai, at least, I know you're still grieving in a price. But I just got back from Haiti and one of the young mama's died of AIDS and there's a little girl that

she left behind who's two years old. She has HIV, in cholera and tuberculosis. The doctors have given her two months to live. And I just wondered if you would be willing to pray about being her mama, And I said, no, I'm not willing to pray about it. I've been praying about this for thirty years. You sign me up, y'all. I did not know. I did not know that the greatest redemption and restoration of my life would come after a river of tears. And that's what I've come back

to tell y'all. I want to bring you a good report. If you are in a difficult season, maybe, like young Lauren, you just feel like I need better friends. I've got some miserable comforters like job. Maybe you long for your marriage to be as close as it once was. Maybe you just need a job. I want to encourage you to stay the course. Your redeemer has already come for you. Your redeemer will restore what seems irreparably broken. Your redeemer is enough, but stand it and worship the fact that

God never leaves us, He will never fail us. His presence is enough. Well. I hope you enjoyed the podcast today. If you did, there are just a couple things I'd love for you to do. Number One, subscribe to our show. That way, the most recent episode will always be in your feed, waiting for you ready when you are. And Secondly, if this ministry has impacted you and you'd like to

help us continue to reach others. You can click the link in the description and you can give now and I'll see you next time on the Elevation Podcast.