From Brokenness to Breakthrough

Welcome to the show that gives you the tools to break through into all you were created to be.

It's the Pam Ramey Show and Jesus, girls and guys, let's find our roar. Hey, hey, hey, Jesus, girls and guys, thank you so much for joining us today. And do we have an amazing show for you that you do not want to miss. If you are feeling discouraged and wonder how God really does restore and redeem the hardships that you have gone through in your life, you are not going to want to miss today's testimony.

And here at the Pam Ramey Show, our Our mission always is to put on full display what God is doing supernaturally in the lives of His sons and daughters on the earth today. And I am very, very honored and excited to introduce to you our very, very special guest today, Lori Revell. How are you doing, my friend? I'm great. Thanks for having me. Well, it is such a joy getting to know you, which we have gotten to know each other in the past few months, and I have learned so much from you.

You are a woman of wisdom. Well, thank you.

You know, Lori, you and I were talking about your childhood and some of the things that you had to overcome as a child, and one of the things that we were chatting about is that it's very easy for us to look at God and receive in our hearts the same kind of love from God that we've known in the natural, from our natural father or even our natural mother, and how that can sometimes hinder us because God's love is pure, and what most of us have known in the natural is not.

And so I was wondering if you could just take us through a journey of what that started to look like. What was your childhood like? What were your parents like? And then we'll parlay that a little bit later into how that gave you a skewed perception of how God loved you. So if you could just tell us a little bit about your story. Okay. Okay, well, I was raised by two heathen parents. I was fortunate to have a grandmother that prayed over me when I was a baby.

I never met her. Well, I did meet her, but I was only three when she passed away. But I did learn later that she was the one that prayed for me. That's awesome. But her daughter and my dad were married. They were—my father was an alcoholic, but he was a very gentle, kind person. My mother, on the other hand, was a very wounded person.

I can look back now over the years and see that she was so wounded, and she never really recovered from those wounds from her, what was supposed to be a godly father, but he was supposed to be saved, but he was a very mean, hateful person. And her life evolved out of that, which made her very resentful and very hateful. And most of the time she took it out on us kids and my dad. I've often said jokingly, I grew up in World War III.

So my mother and I never got along. And at the ripe old age of 16, the first guy that thought I was really cute, I decided we were going to run away and get married, and we did. But that's where it all started. Because you were looking for love and were supposed to receive that love, unconditional love from our parents. Right. Which I think many people have not. And so now you're married at 16. And what is your – I'm just going to sort of speed bump over this a little bit.

So your dad and mom, did they talk about God in the home? Did they have a relationship at all with God? You had mentioned something that there was like God was going to punish you. Well, whenever I did something that displeased my mother, she would always say, God's going to get you for that. So you, that was your perception of God. Right. Fear. Right. And no, I never—well, I actually did hear about God and Jesus growing up all my life, but not in the godly way that we should hear about him.

It was—his name was profaned every day. In your home? In my home, yeah. Wow. Wow. So, no, I had a terrible view of who he was, and basically I just wanted to stay away from him. Wow. He seemed just as uncaring and— He was up there with a big club waiting for me to do something wrong. Yeah, yeah. I can relate to that. I can relate to that. So—. Take us from there. Now you're a 16-year-old girl. You've run off. You got married because finally you thought you saw love.

Yeah, somebody valued me and thought I was special. And we were married for seven years. We had two beautiful children, a son and a daughter. And at the ripe old age of 23, I became aware that I may be a 23-year-old single mom. And that scared me. And we were going to a little church because I had come to the theology in my brain that my little kids needed to be in church. Where do you think that came from? Well, neighbors that were knocking on my door. You know, you really need to

bring your kids up in church. And I thought, they really need that. And we went to this, I won't even mention the denomination, but we went to this little church. And it was a small church. And I knew that I knew that I knew those people really loved the Lord. But there is a love that is without knowledge. And when I found myself in the position of maybe being single, what do you do? You call your pastor.

And they came over. And we got in front of my sofa, and we got on our knees, and we prayed and, crying, snot flying, tissues galore. And we got up and they hugged me and they said, okay, honey, it's going to be all right. They hugged me and they left. And two months later, I was a single 23-year-old with two children. My goodness. And I was very angry with God.

I thought, you know, I've never asked you for a thing. The first time I ever came to you and asked you, all I wanted was my family saved. And in your mind, he didn't come through for you. Oh, no.

But I had no relationship with him. I was in a church, but I wasn't saved. I was doing the religious thing. Right, which is so easy to fall into. So, wow. So you are not only not saved, but you're even more angry with God, probably, it sounds like, than you were when you left at 16. Right. Because, like you said, you ask him for one thing and he didn't show up. Right. So for quite a few years, I lived in the world the way the world lives. I partied hardy for quite a few years.

And I did get married again. And we started going to church. And all of our friends said, well, you really need to go to this big, big, big church because that's where all your connections are going to be made. We weren't going there to find Jesus. We were going there to find business. So it was a networking opportunity. A networking opportunity, yeah. But that pastor, after we were there for a couple months, he got up.

Now, this was a very large church. There was over 1,000 people every Sunday. Why? And he got up and he explained what salvation was. And I'm sitting there thinking, I'm 35 years old. I've never heard this. And I jumped up and nearly knocked three people down to run down there because I realized I'm not saved. I'm sitting in church, but I'm not saved. And I got very saved. You got very saved. Not just a little bit saved. You got very saved. And I just wanted to be a good little girl for Jesus.

So I liked how you just said you wanted to be a good little girl for Jesus. I can relate to that in that I could relate to Jesus a lot easier than I could relate to God the Father, because Jesus was like he was always, you know, hanging out with the underdog. And that felt right. That felt good to me. And he was always doing miracles and, you know, healing people, feeding crowds of hungry people.

But God the Father, I felt like you did, that he was just sort of sitting around in heaven with his long white beard and his checkbook or his check, you know, whatever, making it. It was a little checking off the boxes. Right. Waiting for me to blow it. And that was my perception. I couldn't—I had a hard time connecting that. Did you still—when you found Jesus, you got really saved.

How was your perception of God, the Father, at that time? I don't know that I really had a perception of Him. I was just learning. I had no foundation, so everything that I was learning was just new information. So I really don't remember thinking about having a relationship with God. It was all performance. Yeah, yeah. Trying to undo the old self to make a new self. But as far as relationship was concerned, there was no relationship.

It was all work. It's all work. And performance—, glues itself, it super glues itself really to acceptance. So you were performing well for acceptance. I was performing very well for acceptance. And we were there for a couple of years. We joined all of the young people, young married group people. And one day my husband said to me, you know, Lori, your smoking is a bad witness because I was a heavy smoker. I smoked two packs a day. And he said, that is such a bad witness.

But you don't tell someone that smokes two packs a day, you just have to quit smoking. That just doesn't happen. No, it doesn't. So to please my husband, because I thought that's what you were supposed to do, women were supposed to obey their husbands and please them. I didn't smoke in front of him. But the ridiculous routine that we went through every evening before he came home from work, My poor son would stand at the front of the house, and when he saw him at the corner, he would say, Mom,

here comes Dad. Oh, my goodness. I would put out my last cigarette for the day, and my daughter would run around the house with a can of Lysol spray. Oh, my God. And I did this crazy routine for about two weeks, and then— So you had the kids like— Oh, yeah. They were backing me up. But one day, about two weeks into this, I would smoke at work. I would smoke at my car, just not in front of him. And one day I thought, this is insanity.

Why am I doing that? I'm 35 years old. So when he came in the back door, I lit up a cigarette and I said, here's the deal. When you married me, I smoked. Get over it. When God saved me, I smoked. If he wants them, he can come and get them. But we will not have this discussion ever again. Now, two days later, I'm at work. I'm at my desk. I lit a cigarette. And where I was raised, I was raised in South Jersey. We were a rough bunch. So getting in a fight was no big deal.

Have you ever just been punched in the stomach and all of the air blown out of you? I have. when I lit that cigarette that's what happened to me and I fell on my desk and my friends all got around me and they weren't going to take me to the ER and I went no no no just take me home, They took me home. I thought, you just need to take a good long nap, which I did. I woke up. I could breathe well. Nothing hurt. I'm in my house by myself. He's at work. The kids are at school.

I'm just on my own for a couple of hours. I made a pot of coffee. I went and sat down at my table that I love, just enjoying my surroundings. And when you smoke and you make a pot of coffee and you sit down, the first thing you do is light a cigarette. Well, that fist came again. Oh, my. I fell on the floor. Oh, my goodness. I crawled on my hands and knees back to my bed. Now, when you are a heavy smoker and you're scared, the first thing you do is reach for your cigarettes.

I'm laying on my bed, on my face, thinking, what in the world is going on? I reach over here for my cigarettes, and a hand pushed my shoulder away. Oh, my goodness. And I thought that my husband came home, and I went like I swung around to slap him. To slap him. And when I turned around, nobody was there. Whoa. It was just me. And I'm laying on my face thinking, God, what is going on? Now, do you remember when Peter was up on the roof and the sheet came down? Yes.

The same thing happened to me. Oh, my goodness. It was an NBC instant replay. I was looking at me standing at the back door telling my husband, if God wants these cigarettes, he can come and get them. I love that. I was just going to go back to that, that you said, I smoked when you married me. I smoked when I was saved. If God wants this, he can come after him. And that's exactly what he did. That's exactly what he did. You were speaking prophetically over yourself. Yeah.

And see, everything that God has done in my life had to be so profound that I could never wrestle with it. Getting saved was miracle number one. Taking the cigarettes with, I mean, from that day, when I jumped out of that bed, when I saw that, I got rid of every cigarette that I ever had. I never had the desire. The desire went away. Everything, gone. Wow. Never. I was 35 years old. I haven't had a cigarette since, and don't want one. Can't stand to be around them.

Isn't that, that's a miracle. It was. That is a miracle. Wow. And it's also kind of a funny story, at least the way you tell it.

Well, tell us a few more stories of where God—because I love the way you can tell a story where God showed up so supernaturally that there was no way you could deny that it was Him, because you have heard the voice of God, Lori, so clearly in your life. And I think I speak for myself and all of our listeners, that's what we want. We want to be able to clearly hear the voice of God.

So if you could share another story of when God just spoke to you and it was like unequivocal that you knew it was Him. One of them was when i was living in auburn alabama i was going through some serious, situations and i needed to hear from him i needed an absolute answer and my friend gave me her apartment she said i'll be gone for a couple of weeks go and stay in my apartment my children, My oldest daughter kept my younger children.

And I went and I laid on my face on the floor for three solid days. And I was just, I ate nothing. The only thing I did was drink water. I prayed and fasted for three days. I'm going to preface this with saying that when God starts speaking to you, for me at that time, I was so excited that he was talking to me, that I didn't stay there long enough to finish everything he told me, but I got the first sentence that he told me.

And one of the things that he told me, he said, you can make this move that you want to make, but you are going to go through the fire. At that time, I was not strong enough in the word or in my relationship with him. When he said, you will go through the fire, that scared me. I was going to say, that sounds a little terrifying. Yeah. I did not want to go through the fire by myself. So I did not make that move. However, 10 years later, he spoke to me again and told me to make that move.

And this time I obeyed that move but I still had to go through the fire. You still had to go through the fire. Yeah, the fire was waiting. The fire was waiting. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Wow. So I did what he told me to do but yeah, I did go through the fire. You did go through the fire and as you would say, you were charbroiled. I was charbroiled. Yeah. But the good thing going through the fire, when you come out the other side, And God always knows the end from the beginning. Yes, He does.

When you come out the other side, you realize that He was with you the whole time. You do. And sometimes when you're right in the middle of the fire, you don't know that. But I agree with you. And now as I look back on my life of times when I've been in the fire, I see that fourth man in the fire with me. I see him there. And it brings me a lot of comfort, and it also brings me a lot of healing in those places of deep devastation that we all go through.

Just going back and seeing Jesus in that fire with you is so comforting, even in retrospect. Don't you agree with that, Lori? Absolutely. There was a time when I just needed prayer. I just wanted a friend that I knew and I thought I trusted to pray with me. And she had her own ministry. And I picked up the phone and I called her and I said. I need, and before I could even finish saying anything, she said to me, Lori, my ministry is going through some hard times right now and I can't help

you. And I was so devastated. But on the other side of that, what the Holy Spirit was teaching me was, you don't need them, you need me. Boy, that's so true. You know, you don't call on people, you call on me. Call on me. Yeah. Wow. So true. After the fact, I could see where that's what he was teaching me. Don't call out to people. Pray and call out to him, and he will get you through to the other side. He will get you through to the other side no matter what.

No matter. And he'll also put the right people in our lives at the right time, but he has to be our number one. Right. He has to be our number one. Absolutely. So, Lori.

How long or when did you come to the revelation where it became true rhema word for you that your heavenly father was not like your earthly father or even your earthly mother, where you could receive his love? Because I also understand being on that people-pleasing, better-get-it-right hamster wheel of trying to please people and please God and lose yourself really in the process of that.

And I remember when it became a revelation to me that God didn't just love the people around me that I was sharing him with, he really literally loved me, adored me, adores you. When did you come to that revelation? It's only been about the last 20 years because before that, I never felt the love of God. I saw the provision. I saw all the attributes, but like you said, never for me.

But the last 20 years I have come to realize how much if he would go through all the things that he went through with me and brought me through all of the things that he brought me through he had to love me and then when he put me in the position that I live in now, With everything that was taken from me is totally restored, sevenfold and more. And I share a life with a husband that loves me and takes care of me. And he's a godly man. He's open and he's honest.

And I'm surrounded with godly people, people like you, people that he's just surrounded me with the last eight or nine years. that are just true brothers and sisters. And that's just the pure love of God. It's made of family. You know, that is the pure love of God. And we do need each other. You know, we need Him first, but we need each other.

And we need to be—and listeners, I'll tell you, you need to be plugged in to a healthy community, a healthy church, a people— You need to be connected to people who are praying for you behind your back. Yeah. Right, Lori? Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, and I agree with you. That's what really helped me was the associations in my life that I had that I saw the love of God on them, not the judgment. Right. And religion will always judge you. Religion will look for...

Well, religion will look at every single thing you've ever done wrong and throw it back in your face. And a religious mindset, we will do that to ourselves, right? Yeah. A religious mindset is the Pharisees. Look what they did to Jesus. What would it do to us? That's exactly right. It destroys us. It really destroys us, that religious mindset.

And the love of God sets us free. It sets us free from performance. It sets us free from people pleasing, and we're able to really rest in His love. I want to go back to what you just said about God has restored everything that has been stolen from you sevenfold. And you told me a story about a garden that you had that illustrates this scripture. So if you could share this scripture with us and then share the story with us because it is a beautiful illustration.

Okay. It's Proverbs 6, 30, and 31. A friend of mine called me one day and told me about this scripture, and he was so excited when he told me about it. It was rhema to him at that time, but it was not rhema to me. Until a couple days later, my son and I had planted a garden, and at the back of the garden was corn. And the corn had grown probably to about five feet tall. It had these really adorable little corns growing on it. And one morning I came out and

looked out the window and all my corn was laying down. And I was so angry. But the kids said to me, well, Mom, just sew it into the kingdom. I went, I don't think so. Sew it into the kingdom how? How did they mean that? You know, if I sow it, I will reap back. But I wasn't willing to do that. But I remembered the scripture that my friend had told me the night, a couple days before.

So I opened my Bible, and I took my Bible, and I went out, and I walked up and down all of my garden, and I prayed over the garden, and I read that scripture to my corn. Say it again, that scripture. Proverbs 6, 30 and 31 says, If you catch a thief stealing to feed himself, God's not going to get too upset. However, if you catch him, he has to restore sevenfold what he stole plus all the goods of his household. And I read that up and down, up and down, up and down. I don't know how long.

Two days later, a friend of mine called me and he asked me to go to a warehouse and pick up... Pallets that are taken off of the trains that go into Atlanta and they offload and then the trucks come and get them. But if one of those pallets is damaged in any way, the entire pallet is not received. Well, my friend, he would go and unload those freezers and then he would sell them in his warehouse.

He was a very godly man. Everything he touched literally turned to money when he would sell this food in his warehouses, he would turn that money back over into the kingdom always. So he called me and he asked me, he said, Lori, can you get a truck and go down to the warehouses for me? He couldn't do it that day. And I said, yeah, I would do that. And I said, do you want me to bring them to the warehouse? He said, no, I want you to take them to all of your Bible studies and just deliver,

just share it with everyone. Okay. Well, it was an entire pallet full of bird's eye broder corn.

Also, a pallet, I'm talking about, not a box, a pallet full. How big were these pallets? Oh, gosh. Well, you know, the width of a pallet, and then it was probably like five or six boxes deep. Oh, my goodness. That's a lot of bird's eye buttered corn. And bird's eye frozen strawberries and bird's eye buttered broccoli. Oh, my goodness. It was three pallets. And I distributed that to all of our friends that were at all of our Bible studies and filled up. I have no idea how many freezers.

What a great story of how God restores what the enemy has stolen sevenfold. Amen. Amen. Amen. And I also am reminded of the scripture in Joel 2.25 that says that God will restore all of the years. Yes. He restores what the enemy has stolen, not only with our provision, but He restores the years. He redeems the years that the locusts have eaten. Amen. Yeah. Amen. Do you feel like he's done that for you, Lori? Yeah. I'm living my best life now.

That's pretty darn exciting. Well, you are one funny girl. You are so much fun to be around, and you are somebody who is very filled with wisdom. You have the kind of wisdom of Solomon in my eyes. And I know that it takes going through a lot of fire to get to that. Yeah. But I trust Him. You do. Yeah. Like I shared the other night at that prayer meeting, we were out just like the guy up on the hill with Billy Crystal and City Slickers. And he said, what's the one thing?

The one thing is when you come to the place where you know that you know that you know, you can trust Him. You can trust Him. And, you know, kind of just circling back to what so many of us have known in our own childhoods with our earthly parents, He redeems that. He redeems that, and we know that He is a good, good Father, and He proves His goodness and His love over and over and over again again. In so many ways. Mm-hmm. I mean, right down to, you know, the cigarettes.

If you want them, come and get them. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And if you release, anything that you release and lay at the feet of Jesus, he's going to take it. Yeah. Yeah. That's a really strong word right there. Anything. Mm-hmm. Anything we lay down at the feet of Jesus, he's going to pick it up and carry it for us. Yep. He already did. He already did. That's right. Right. He already did 2,000 years ago. He took everything.

He took everything for us. You know, I just want to ask you to share one other thing with us. You know, the scripture in Isaiah 40, I'm just going to read this. I love the scripture, and it might be familiar to a lot of our listeners, that God gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. Even youth will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion. But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.

They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint. And Lori, we were in a Bible study a couple of months ago, and you shared the most incredible. Process that eagles go through, I believe you said, yearly. And we were talking about this verse, and it reminds me of what we go through in our lives when we're going through the fire and having to get into the presence of the Son, the Son of God. Could you share that with our listeners?

Okay. I heard this from Joyce Meyer years ago, and she was teaching how once a year, The eagle will go up as high as he can get where none of his predators can get anywhere near him. He will beat his beak all the way down. And he will pluck all of his feathers out. And then he will just lay in the sun and let the sun detox his body until everything grows back. He stays there until everything goes back. And then he will go back to being his ego self again.

But what I saw in all of that is when he's plucking out all the feathers, it's like us plucking out all the trash, garbage, and yuck. Trash, garbage, and yuck, yes. And when he's beating his beak down, it's like, to me, it's almost like God saying, be careful what you let come out of your mouth. Boy, that's good. That's good. Be careful. Be careful. Only let what the Word says come out of your mouth. And He stays there until that beak grows back because that beak is how He survives.

Our mouth is how we survive. It sure is. We can either kill ourself or we can lift ourself up. It's so true. And that is such a beautiful illustration. And we really do, so much of it depends on what comes out of our mouth. Because we have been given the choice every single solitary day to choose to think and speak life-giving words or death-giving words.

And if we are thinking death-giving words or speaking death-giving words, they're going to come to pass, same as with life-giving words, because our words are containers of power, right? Absolutely. And a friend of ours, Johnny Taylor, one of the books that he wrote is called Rhema.

And a Rhema word, if God gives you a Rhema word, everything that you need to complete that word that he gave you is in that word. Right. It's in that Word. He doesn't just give you a word for you to figure out how to do it. He gives you that Word, and then in that Word that He's given you is everything you need to finish what He told you to do. Boy, that is so powerful. That is so powerful. So when He gives you a Word, He's going to complete His Word. Absolutely. He's going to keep His Word.

His Word will not return to Him void. It will not return void. I love that Scripture. I think it's in Jeremiah 1.12 where He says, I literally watch over my word to make sure that it fulfills that which it has been sent forth to accomplish. And I love that scripture so much. I think about God just watching over his word. So what we're speaking out of our mouth, when it's the word of God, he's watching over that word. Absolutely. Absolutely. To make sure that it is accomplished.

If he's watching over every tear that we shed, why would he not watch out for his word? Lori, you know that your Abba Daddy loves you. Mm-hmm. Yeah. There's no doubt in your mind that he loves you. Absolutely. Yeah. And isn't it wonderful that he redeems every single thing that the enemy has stolen from us listeners, whatever has been stolen from you today, God wants to redeem that. He wants to redeem that. That's his heart. That's his daddy's heart.

If us being earthly and carnal, which is just having the mind of the world, if we can delight in giving good gifts to our children, how much more does our Father delight in giving good gifts to us? Because we're his children.

Absolutely. We're a sons and daughters. Lori, could you just give a final word to our listeners? Maybe could you speak to that person who is having a really difficult time letting go of the past, letting go of maybe the pain of their childhood? And they're like, well, you know, I'm glad that this worked out for you, but I'm in the fire. And I don't know how to deal with it, what would you say to that person today, Laurie?

I think what I would say was the Holy Spirit spoke to me about three years ago about a situation that I was dealing with with my son. And he said, either you can be God or I can be God. And at that moment, I realized that he's had a whole lot more practice at being God than I have. And he knows the beginning from the end. So if you're going through anything at the moment, God already knows the end.

And if he loves you that much, you have to be able to trust that he's going to take you through to the end, and the end is going to be a renewal. Oh, that's so good. The end is a renewal. And you can trust that. Amen. You sure can. You can trust that.

I think about the scripture when Jesus told his disciples to get in the boat and go to the other side. They encountered a massive storm halfway through that journey. But God said, I'm going to get you to the other side. I will get you to the other side. That does not mean that there will not be storms. But we have to keep believing and trusting that he's going to do what he said he's going to do. He's going to get us to the other side. Absolutely.

Yeah. And we've seen that over and over. I know I've seen that over and over in my life. Like, oh, my goodness, how in the world did I get here? Wow, how did I survive that? And I know you can certainly say that. Absolutely. But it's him. It's him. It's him. Wow. This has been such a great conversation. Lori, thank you very much for being here today. Well, thank you for having me. It is such a joy. What a powerful testimony of redemption. What a powerful testimony of renewal,

and what a powerful testimony of the goodness of God. He is good. He is good. He's totally good. He is good. And listeners, we are so grateful that you have joined us today. If you feel... Discouraged today. Remember these scriptures. Laura, I'm going to have you say it one more time. Proverbs 6, 30, 31. That he will restore sevenfold everything that the devil has stolen from you, plus all the goods of his household.

And the Bible also says that the wealth of the heathen is laid up for us, the just. So he's already made that provision. He's already made That provision, He is Jehovah. You just have to receive it. You have to receive it. That's right. That's our part, right? We have to receive it. So receive that for yourself today. And if you know somebody that is discouraged, who's in the fire, who's in the storm, please share the show with them.

Like us, subscribe, like and subscribe. That helps us to get the word out. We want for people to be encouraged and to know that they know that they know that Jesus loves them, that Jesus loves you. And so please share this with your friends. And we thank you so much for being here today. Again, Lori Revell, what an honor it has been having you on the show. And as you go about your day today, we want you to know that we love you. We're praying for you.

And above all things, Jesus is crazy about you. And we're going to see you next time on The Pam Ramey Show. God bless you. Music.