Journey Home - 2017-07-10 - Lisa Brandel

[Music] good evening and welcome to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host for this program and once again I have this wonderful privilege to join you to hear a story of someone whose desire to follow our Lord Jesus Christ brought her surprisingly home to the Catholic Church now my other job is with an organization called the coming home Network international we help non Catholic clergy and laity discovered the beauty of the church and if I were to ask you who are probably the most common men and women who come into the church you might think it's so probably Episcopalians or maybe Lutheran's maybe high church Presbyterians are Church but you might be surprised to know that one of the most common Christian non-catholic Christians journey to the Catholic Church are of all things Baptists and and why is that and I'm not sure exactly why it's the work of the Holy Spirit but we're privileged tonight in the program to have just just such a person Lisa brand L is a former Southern Baptist welcome to the journey home thank you good to be home right right and that's an interesting phrase in itself this idea of how many non Catholic Christians who find their way to the Catholic Church invariably it's home there's something about that and and any other thing I'm excited about hearing your story is that you you mentioned that a former guest on the journey home was important in your journey Jim cope Jim cope so that's great former Lutheran that's right that's right pastor yeah so Oh get out of the way I look forward to hearing that but let me encourage you to go way back and let's hear the whole story in the beginning well let me first explain that I was not raised in any church not any Church at all you don't why I mean my mom and dad were very beautiful people very good people no there was no tradition Church there's just no tradition of Church and the only time I can remember they they believed in a sort of non-denominational higher power God but not anything specific to any religion and what started me off on my journey was very young very precocious I can remember when I was in second grade to rewind that I was born I had anxiety and depression my whole life I can't remember a time when I didn't and that was not diagnosed for a long time it was not to date myself but it was the 70s and 80s so that's not something we had one of a bunch of siblings or just know I was an only time itself complicated yeah myself being only child I know the complications of you sitting by yourself all the time wondering is it me or them yeah yeah right so but I can remember mom read me a like a picture Bible once you know when I was like four or five it's stuck with me because I sat on her lap and there was a crucifixion scene and I said why did they kill him and she said I really don't know maybe to start something new it's just I wonder if the audience feels the same way I mean certainly we know there are people in America that will go to church you know that it's hard for us to imagine a family being brought up without anything and that just proves the reality that there's still people to be evangelized oh yeah definitely so I had never been into any kind of a church I met a person who was a Catholic big huge family he invited me to come to church with him and I got my parent's permission and they were like sure no big deal okay and I walked into the church with him and I nearly fell over and when he genuflected because I was I was going I've never been in a church before and I sat and was just kind of mind blown about everything and I I went to church with him generally speaking but I saw in him and his family something I could definitely tell I did not and my family have and and I was a very I struggled a lot as a young person because of the anxiety because of the depression and mom and dad didn't and I want to do with me because you know the mental illness wasn't a thing back No so the first time maybe I was always a closeted Catholic but I the first time I went to church was with with a Catholic and I went to church semi-regularly with with him were you picking up anything from what was being said you get any instructions at all not really I mean he was a very young man and I was obviously a very young person I became friends kind of friends with the priest he was friendly with me and I didn't ask any questions because I really didn't think this Christianity thing was with for me really I was searching for God yeah I was searching for God everywhere but where I was going wasn't you know there were a few things about the church that were really beautiful to me watching people take the ignorance I I remember kneeling because obviously it's not a Christian you don't go out kneeling and watching people take it with your hands and I thought when I wouldn't and then I saw somebody take it with their mouth and I was that that seems like appropriate to me I I didn't know why nobody said nobody said that even used to be a thing it's just you know nothing you're pointing out to us is that there are people sitting in our pews that don't know what's going on yeah well visitors they just don't know and be taken for granted yeah and and and this was back by this point it was back in the late 80s early 90s where maybe catechesis wasn't really as solid as it could have been but people are starting to recognize that there had been this great dip and so we were on the way trying to figure out what yeah in retrospect I definitely see that you know at the time I was just kind of but the the priest that was there at st. Pat's at the time was it was good with me he was very calm and if I didn't happen to squeak a question he would you know say it give me the answer but I really I knew that it was funny I knew that there was stuff that other people hadn't there was a piece there was you know even in conflict there was something that they had that I definitely didn't because I was in and out of you know at least mental health crisis is because I thought I was a terrible person and and all this sort of thing so as a matter of fact I was with my Catholic friend I had a baptist friend who was his father was a pastor and I was friendly with them and they were very kind to me as well and when I had this this what I call the last straw this last break my the the Catholic priest wasn't around my friends took me who was Catholic took me to the Baptist pastor and said she needs help and and enter the Southern Baptists life and he evangelized me he was a beautiful person he was very kind and he did the best for me that he knew he he gave me fire insurance where would you go if you were to die today we were to go to hell and I wasn't really interested about whether I'd go to hell because I was already there you know the depression the anxiety the pain and I said to him I said I don't care where I would go I need out of Hell now and I said because I'd been informed a little bit by the the Catholic Church I said I need to be baptized I need to become a Christian or I'm gonna die that's all there is to I'm gonna die the the anxiety the depression the suicidal thought you know was overcoming me and he said what any good Christian would let's pray and ask Jesus for forgiveness so and I'd absolutely did and I will not deny that the there was a piece that came over me and I I didn't know what would happen tomorrow but I knew that right then and there that everything was going to be okay I've always found a powerful one I here a witness to the work of the Holy Spirit in your life because you know when you look back with hindsight all that stuff was somehow the work of God's grace moving you to that moment all that stuff even the difficult stuff oh yeah was all bringing you forward absolutely because I know the the whole of my story I want to tell the people that are watching this I have what many people might considered had a very tough life and suffered a lot but I wouldn't change a thing not a thing because it's allowed me to experience grace more fully so I just I just wanted I don't want to make people and the fact that you can see it that way is gracious oh oh yeah oh yeah and that's a part of the story of me becoming Catholic that's that ultimately is the story about me becoming Catholic is being able to see that so so your Baptist I'm Baptist and I've never opened a bond I mean I'd heard the scripture proclaimed in the Catholic Church but I'd never open a Bible and he gave me a stack of you know read that your Bible and fill out these things and I came home to my mom and dad and I said I'm gonna be baptized that actually it was Pentecost Sunday they scheduled it for Pentecost Sunday which was yesterday and I'm going to be the Baptist and my mom and dad went oh crap she's joining a cult and I said no no I'm not mom I'm not this is because of the the turmoil of my mental health and my depression and my anxiety they thought well this is just another thing that's going to be terrible but you know I felt I'm going to just I didn't know exactly how that you know I'm a kid 17 years old I don't know how this is all going to pan out but I just know that it's going to be okay and I told my mom and dad I said I don't now mom and dad but this is everything's going to be okay so they followed me through the church Pentecost Sunday watched me get dunked they should have kept me down a little longer I think maybe that's why I wasn't Catholic automatically God said she needs a little extra dunking I came up and the night before my baptism I had it this big stack of papers I was kind of scared to read the Bible I don't know why but I I thought I'm gonna try these papers out and see what I can do I didn't I opened up the Bible and I started filling him out and filling a minute question and answers question and answers about you know this that and the other thing about God and about the Bible and it was getting you looking at the scripture and and for the first time in it when I opened the scripture it was like an old friend I was and I'd never really gotten into it I and after my baptism my past my Baptist pastor said you know it'll take you a couple months to fill all those papers out if you need help you know all these big thick 1980s 90s Castle Baptist booklets and I said I'm done I did him all that night I said I'm done and he said well I'll have to take a look at him and he's looking over my answer is going he said obviously you know what happened to you and I said I'm never gonna be the same never going to be the same so the change in me was so profound that my mom and dad converted within months and my father was called to the Southern Baptist diakonos he became a deacon whoa whoa our guest is Lisa brand L whoa it just screams of grace yes that's powerful that no it wasn't me definitely and you know a lot of it has to do with that question that Baptist pastor asked you about heaven and hell was the entry into this door yeah that was the one that the Lord used to awaken you absolutely that's right Wow dad's a deacon well yes yours it was amazing he they had they and they told me they said we're gonna well we're gonna go they wanted to make sure I wasn't joining this big cult they were gonna go and with me to church which I attended you know the Bible it was funny and we go to Mass on Saturday and Bible School and Southern Baptist Church on Sunday with my parents and I don't know I have asked me why didn't they go to the Catholic Church with you and I said I couldn't answer you I really couldn't because but you were still going to Mass with your friend no more so now it was I more so now because suddenly I understood suddenly with this massive conversion at what he wasn't just holding up this round cracker he was holding up Jesus and I could see that now I made sense to me of the things that I saw in the mass started to make more sense even though I'm assuming you're Baptist pastor on Sunday morning wasn't saying exactly what was happening no no no not a bit but that can that was confusing to me really confusing to me because I thought we we serve the same God we love the same Jesus why am i and then when people found out that I was going to the Catholic Church they they would slip me pamphlets of this is the of Babylon and I really that broke my heart because I loved all of these people in the Catholic Church and I was you know that caused a little bit of spiritual discord in me not enough to put me off God definitely but you know definitely I was going that sent me on a deeper search for truth okay I had to I had to know more I had to know the truth about like I could know the truth about the Living God but I wanted to know more because I knew that I had a great love of Jesus I knew that obviously my Southern Baptist pastored it and my mom and dad definitely that because my father seeing my father especially blossom in in grace was I got to see them baptized they've never been baptized and I got to see them baptized and then he was on fire and you know learning and became a deacon and we would go together as a family to nursing homes and to calls and stuff like that minister it was a powerful time it was started to be a little controversial because I was exposed at that point Calvinism by other people I was told that the Catholic Church was the of Babylon and that was devastating because I had this beautiful priest friend and all these beautiful Catholic friends and the guy you know the Southern Baptist doctrines so and then they're all well meaningful oh yeah we love Christ and they yeah they their desire for giving those pamphlets because of their love for you and then we had they didn't want to see me but if you were unsaved and you're always saved then why does it matter right if you really truly believe that doctrine yeah yeah once you've accepted Christ then yeah so so that drove me so you were already starting to think theologically oh yeah definitely right I was six months a Christian and I was diving into Martin Luther's bondage of the will and learning John Calvin's Tulip total depravity of man which to my depressive vine sounded prettier logical I mean you know I think in a depression tells you a lot of Lies and when when somebody says well that's scriptural that we're totally depraved I'm like I can get behind that but I'm not hearing that in the Catholic Church know that we we have he didn't die for him he died for our sins definitely but he didn't die because we were unredeemable yeah you know when I hear people in your situation back that deal with all those inner voices mm-hmm it's so comforting in a way to know that the scripture tells us that our Lord was tempted in every way as we mm-hmm he knows those voices too mm-hmm he experienced them now the difference is that if you don't know Christ you don't know how to deal with those voices exactly mm-hmm but our Lord has shared those you dealt with it what one of the first things you know 1718 years old and I'm dealing with all the the anxiety and I thought well Jesus couldn't have known anxiety and then I read the verse where Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane and he's sweating blood and I looked that up I thought what how does that even happen I looked it up it's a medical condition that is caused by anxiety I thought my goodness my lord knows that and I've never sweat blood so I've never been that anxious Wow so there you are reading bondage of the will yeah tulip and yeah love that but if you said it's all these different theologies in your own life right Baptists and a little bit of Calvinist slipping in and then Catholic Church on Saturdays yeah Catholic Church on Saturdays and my father's a deacon serving the church and then the unthinkable happens we have a pastoral scandal that the pastor that brought me to the I'm gonna say brought me to the Lord right there was a scandal with him and the and by this point my father is the head of had deacon and I you know were heartbroken and we were all heartbroken but the church itself absolutely went crazy and they wanted to throw him out of the church you know he he said you know yes I've done this wrong thing and I'm forgive I ask your forgiveness and I'm going to leave and per the Southern Baptist doctrine if they're you know ask for forgiveness do you forgive them forgiveness and if they leave they leave if they don't leave if they demand that they stay or you know then that's when you're supposed to vote them out excommunicate for my Catholic and I my father's heart was broken about it they he said no this isn't what we were taught we're taught to forgive and love each other and we're taught that you know we were Hospital a hospital of sinners not this mausoleum of saints yeah you're if it's a Bible alone group which they were or this vector and they're following the instructions of our Lord and Matthew which is you confront the person and the only whole process they give for that church and my father followed that exactly and if the person's Kames back comes back and says I'm sorry I was wrong well it talks about forgiveness right well my father was a head of the church yeah at this point because the past had been unseated and they brought this meeting together and said you know we're gonna vote him out and I said it's in my letter and through my parents because you know in the Southern Baptist Church you know the hey you know if you're gonna vote him out and this other person out I said you're gonna vote me out too because I will not cast this down hmm and they did I was excommunicated all right but that it was it it's okay it was okay because at that point I I said well you know I'm gonna be I want to go to our CIA class and and become a Catholic and you had drawn in that direct yes I'd been drawn in that direction even though I was still struggling theologically with the free will and the tulip and all this other stuff I still I was gonna go to our CIA class and become Catholic I don't know why I didn't have any solid theological reason why and my mom and dad asked me to stay in the church until his tenant is tenure as a deacon was over because you know the Southern Baptist Church you you serve seven years and then you are off a time and I obedient to my parents I said yes I had gotten clear up to I had gone to first confession and that was an amazing experience in RCA yeah so you had gone through okay yes I went to confers confession and my parents sat down with me and had this talk and I said okay okay but the first confession father Tony Geraci was it was my first confessor and he was amazing he was absolutely amazing and I walked away from it having confessed kind of a hardness of heart to a certain member of my family that when they were laying dying I was able to reconcile completely you know absolutely it was beautiful but I walked away from it I was kind of disheartened and you know after I was voted I found out they didn't take me off the rolls of the church they just symbolically I suppose did it but I was I walked away from it all because there was this conflict Calvinism Southern Baptist ISM you know the of Babylon this doesn't anything and I walked away from it having watched these people who I'd seen this pastor including you know me and my parents and people who needed help he administered faithfully to them just absolutely Lou that lose their mind and I I said to my mom and dad and it's a wrong spirit and it's a wrong heart I would rather walk openly amongst wolves who don't pretend to be sheep than I would sheep who I heard nothing but wolves some you see walked away from it did you walk away from everything I walked away from everything so you stopped your journey to the church Catholic Church in in deference to your my parents desire and it would be tough when your doesn't you have sincere people that lose your confidence at all and I was John not only spiritually young that I was very young physically yeah and had had your mental struggles been diagnosed or anything yeah that time they had well by that time they had and that was its own little kettle of fish but that was feeding the whole and emotional environment that you were in at that time okay it's behind you you're moving on oh yeah I call it my wilderness time okay we're gonna take a break so we're going to spend about two minutes in the wilderness here before we could burglary come back all right all right Lisa we'll see you in just a bit as we here arrest the story of Lisa bran down [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome back to the journey home I'm your host Marcus Grodi and our guest tonight is Lisa brand L as we were during the break I look down here on on my desk and I have this crucifix here and I remembered you're telling that story about your mother reading that Bible and and she couldn't answer that question I'm assuming by this time but you knew that reason why our Lord was on that cross and so did your mother and your father mm-hmm yes yes they did you know and even though things went bad in the Baptist Church for me now my mom and dad stayed because they said we are here to be obedient to God not to men they were they I may have helped lead them to the church but they led me by example at that point not blessing yeah so you entered a wilderness experience yes I didn't talk about that oh I wouldn't you know the wilderness is always hard at this point I walked away from organized religion but I didn't walk away from God I kept studying I got into studying Judaism because I was well all of these people in the Bible that I'm reading about were Jews and I need to know about this I need to know about this and you know you wax and wane in the wilderness you get closer you further away or closer for their way and I really didn't feel God's presence in my life at that point until I met the man who would be my husband and he I was at a job he was walking towards me and I put my hand out to greet him and I heard God say this is the man you're going to marry and I went no it isn't no not gonna happen not gonna happen and I sat back down at my desk and he asked me out almost weekly for six months until I said yes Hugh and he was an agnostic and I said God he doesn't believe in you I you know don't wanna be on an equally oKed I I don't want to be married I don't I don't want any a part of this and then one weekend after I returned have having to have a hysterectomy we were all going out to watch some music and I said that if he shows up I'll go out on a date with him it doesn't mean that we'll get married and you know six months after that we got we were we got married he knew what he was talking about I was just not having it I just said no god I don't want to do that now what about that unequally yoked issue I put it in God's hands I serve and and he I loved a debate I loved it abate and he does - he did - and he would come at me with you know various things and and I said I don't you know I would answer this best as I could but I would give him instead of giving him the Southern Baptist perspective I would give him like three different perspectives well the Calvinist think this the Jewish people they you know this this you know because I I had this more well-rounded view of you know the dogmas of the time and I and he I never got really mouthy with him he would get frustrated with me because I wouldn't I was down in a conference in Atlanta Georgia and Michael Shermer was there and he if you know who Michael Shermer is he wrote the site he's affectionately known to me in my mind is the Billy Graham of if atheist a soldier you know he wrote the science of good and evil and he had that book sitting out and my husband was kind of awestruck by him and I said come on we'll go buy you the book so I went and bought him the book when he signed it for him and I was really pleased with it me walking away he held my hand and he said sweetheart this is against everything you believe in why did you do this for me and I said it's because it's not about my answers it's about your questions keep questioning and on all side note because it really was a side note he when I married him he had cancer did you know that yes I did so I I loved him completely and wholly and I knew this wasn't going to be forever because of it but I said it's in your hands Lord and I thought well maybe just maybe I'm here to be to minister to him to take care of him and to help him see God so so did you progress in that I mean what happened there he slowly became less and less argumentative and in the final months of his life I was sitting reading my Bible on on the bed and he was in a bed that was adjustable because his cancer had gone to his bones to keep him comfortable and he got up and he was walking down the hall he so what are you doing and I even I prayed in private and I've read my Bible in private to respect him and he saw this and I said I'm cramming for the test and he said I think you've already passed it and he went to the bathroom and in the final week of his life he was vomiting like three times a day four times a day I came and sat down next to his bed and he said are you praying for me and I said every day and he said I've never seen you pray for me I said did you want me to pray for you he said yes so I put my hands over his heart I began to pray for him that God healed his soul never felt compelled to pray for his physical healing and even that need God's hands all along anyway but yeah so he I took my hands off him fine I so did you feel better and he said and I said would you like to surrender to Jesus Christ it's that you own that real piece and I didn't for whatever reason say not good a hell or anything like that probably because the way I see Christ you know he gives me that rock of peace inside of me and he nodded his head and we prayed together and you know for people who don't believe in deathbed conversions and he had been baptized as a Methodist as a young child all I can say to you is God gave me miracles he stopped vomiting and in the last night of his life he spoke with the tongues of angels he was speaking a language I didn't recognize it and I said baby I don't understand you and he said I know and then he'd get right back to speaking in this different tongue and he even insinuated to me before he died that my father was going to die my father and mother had factored into our journey heavily they'd helped us with the chemotherapy we were up in Cleveland all the time you know my father and my mother both were very gentle witnesses to him because even though they two had walked away from the church at this point they hadn't walked away from their faith and he in the last night of his life he asked me he said when he went back to when he went back home who would be there to meet him and I said I'm not sure what you're saying and he said I said my father and he said and I my father was six foot four in the picture of health at this point well what happened was is the night that my husband died my father had had a silent heart attack and he had lived 30 days after my husband died and then we ended up in emergency room with him and three days after that Here I am freshly widowed in my my father dies and my mom and I was left with my mom and my uncle who was struggling with addiction and my mom said why does God hate us I said he doesn't mama but I couldn't I didn't know that I believed it the the night that my father died I thought I've looked at him there he was larger than life and I looked at him there and I thought all the times I'd seen him lay hands on people and pray there's nobody here to lay hands on him and pray and I went okay I'm here and I put hands on him and I asked God to heal him wholly and totally and completely and within hours he was gone I didn't looking back on that and it was a very very dark time I thought I was afraid to pray I was afraid of my faith for the first time in my life and I felt absolutely just devastated my uncle ended up committing suicide hmm and I found him and you know my uncle was very combative with my religion he knew I believe was a believer and after dad died he said your God did this your God did that and I was just struck me I didn't know what to say and I said my God didn't do this I'm as you're telling me that I'm reminded that just happens that this morning in the office of readings the reading was from Joel and it was a part of job that's all of that it's all of that everything taken away you know you get real close to just casting it all away did the threat of the belief in the reality of that loving father remain that God it during that time it did because I but I stopped I stopped talking to him I wasn't mad at him per se I was just very very I prayed out of obedience but I did not feel that he was hearing me I did not feel that he was hearing me and then in into that in this last of many years you know from 2009 to 2015 my mother was diagnosed with kidney cancer I had lost everybody in my family in that period of time and I was I felt very wounded and very scared to pray even and then mom was diagnosed with kidney cancer in January and died in April and now I smile it wasn't smiling I remember sitting in my in my mom's recliner after they'd removed her body from my house and I'd taken care of her too and her last words were beautiful the last thing I saw her do just before she was diagnosed with kidney cancer she was I saw her touching her screen of her computer and she was going through the obituaries and I said what are you doing she said I'm praying for everybody here and I I was so struck and humbled by her and I I was I had this you know collapse kind of mental collapse when she was diagnosed all this anxiety all this depression all this fear had come rushing on to me because I thought I am here alone and I do not know how I'm going to do this and I on my knees reached out for help and you know with to the doctor some some therapists but on my knees I said god I don't know I can't do this alone and I am scared I don't want to be alone and he gave me the strength to calm down to the point where when she was dying she wanted to sit up and I got up on the bed with her and I'm all by myself no family no Church family nobody to call except Hospice God thank God and she I li leaned her against me and held her and I she looked up at me and she said you're wonderful and then she said am I going to church to church so here I am everyone close to you is gone yes yeah Here I am I didn't want to do this Here I am sitting at five o'clock in the morning on April the 15th 2015 alone and I said oh God I guess this is just how it's gonna be now sitting silent absolute silence except for my fish tanks everybody I have a 95 year old grandmother who has Alzheimer's so I've got her still but that's I guess this is just how it's going to be and then I said something I believe that changed my life my world Here I am Lord do as thou so I get this idea I'm going to sell everything and move that England I'm gonna I didn't even ask God though I was like I'm gonna just do this and Isis or any connection or was it totally out of the blue well no I have friends in England I have you know I but I thought I'm just gonna do this I'm gonna take this time to heal I said I I know I need to heal I'm gonna take this time to you so I spent the next six months and the weird thing is is I lived a very changed my life completely I lived the very monastic lifestyle I started praying what I understand didn't understand then but and understand now is the Liturgy of the hours and I lived this very simple monastic lifestyle I became a vegan because I was like I'm going to live a very penitent very simple life from here on out this is how it's going to be just gonna move to angry well that worked out except my house didn't sell I had a job opportunity in England I had a place to stay all I had to do was sell my house in the house never sold so I had to do another conference down in the south and I noticed that I had spent so much time alone that I started to get kind of weird around people you know I was living this very simple very monastic life so I thought well I'm gonna get a part-time job because I was working for myself from home I'm gonna get a part-time job I get a part-time job and this person is Catholic who is the ball out of the manager and he and I hit it off it's like oh you're Catholic that's cool I kind of know a little bit of it I I kind of know a little bit of that Catholicism you know I never throw any cards down on the table because you know what's the point we're all brothers and sisters and and he and I would debate you know debate different things and there were times when I said well st. Thomas Aquinas says and he's he's like can you say your son Baptist I said well yeah yeah I know a little bit about Catholicism Thomas Merton said you know because I was very drunk you know since since that time you add all this stuff that I had started to learn and get into and read and meditate on and probably you know practice Ignatian meditation and and all that sort of thing and just on my own and while not going to church while not going to church and he said at some point when I found out that my house wasn't selling everything kind of folded about going to England he said well it wasn't God's well and I wanted to go I don't like you very much because I knew he was right he said hey why don't you come to alpha I said what's alpha he said well it's the thing we're having at my church it's you know just real open honest communication everybody just sits and eats and you know we watch these videos and then talk about God and I said sure why not it'll be a hoot I'll be fine I like talking about God I love God I love Jesus you know so three sessions and we're talking about prayer and the the people in my table are beautiful people absolutely vibrant with the spirit vibrant with the Holy Spirit wonderful open you know I'm the only non you know there's only two non Catholics in the group but nobody's hitting us over the head with you know rosary beads or anything they're just giving us love and three people three sessions and we're talking about prayer and I start to tell them the story about me laying hands on my father and all of a sudden I just couldn't go on because it was like scales lifted from my eyes and all these prayers that I had obedient ly prayed but without seeing them come to fruition God started to show me that he had been there the whole time then it was only the illusion that I was alone the whole time and I walked out of there I didn't talk to anybody after the Alpha it was beautiful course I didn't talk to anybody after the Alpha I walked out of there and I was smiling I felt joy I don't smiling from ear to ear and I drove home it was about 30 minutes from my house and I heard God speak again like he told me when here's the man you're gonna marry it's time to come home and I went yes sir so my friend who had invited me said I called had called to check up on me he said you know we were acting weird after alpha what's going on in it well I've got some big decisions to make even though I knew my choice I he said well yeah I'm sure you know you don't know you're gonna go to England now or not I said no it doesn't have anything to do with that I need to become Catholic and he said you need to talk to Jim coat who was doing alpha with us and I said okay I will and I prayed I cuz I had to make the choice to be obedient and I knew I mean had to make the choice but there is that irresistible grace that if you submit yourself to you you do get to feel it in the next week I said God if this is where you want me because I have gone through this heck before if this is where you want me you're gonna have to make this easy because I you know a little bruised like he didn't like he didn't know so I walked into alpha and the next in the next course and I talked what walked up to this guy and I was just really you know I I it was wonderful and I said started telling him how I'd taken RCIA 20-some years ago and then I felt that it was time for me to come home and and he said oh by the way I'm Jim Koch I didn't know who he was and I said oh really he said I can talk to the priest so I said well yeah why don't you do that I do that that was Jim at that time working in the parish yes he was he's any still is he's he's teaching our CIA and it was absolutely wonderful because it was only a couple weeks away from Easter and he got with our pastor father Larry and father Larry said well I'm gonna have to meet with her you know we're really gonna have to interview with her so I met with him and Jim was there and and he started asking me all these questions and it you know I 27 years of study and I he said he said you know this is probably your probably the most well-prepared catechist I've ever interviewed and and we were talking about agape love and I said all love is sacrifice Accra Feist and in he looked at me and said now all love is sacrifice and I had seen in my own life how God had taught me that profound love of being willing to lay yourself open to and to take care of people and to love without reservation and all of those conflicts that were in my head about Calvinism and Southern Baptists and then saved didn't matter anymore it didn't matter theologically speaking I've gotten you know I shed all of that fear and all that doubt because none of that comes from the Lord fear does not come from the Lord perfect love casts out fear so and I was brought into the church that a fourth at Easter and the this church secretary said how many how many pews do you have do you want to reserve and I said I'm bringing nobody with me but I am assuming there are a lot of people waiting on me so there's a scripture that I've mentioned I know on this program many many times it's from second Corinthians chapter 1 where Saint Paul talks about we're comforted that we might comfort yes yes and that seems to apply very much to your life yes I had started a ministry before I went any back to church called the widow lady where I talked about I I wrote open and Leon honestly about grieving and and the losses and that sort of thing and thousands of yeah yeah thousands of people who responded to me not only people who were grieving but people who were dying people of all different faiths wealthy people who you know were had lost and and I was I was very humbled by it but I thought you know blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted yeah and I don't know I tried you know to use biblical principles in a very loving way to to talk about you know all this pain and all the things and all the facets of grief and pain that we go through as humans I was just thinking recently about the the power and the generosity of grace that God gives into people's lives at the same time he gives grace freely to people and then were free to respond and the mystery of that is that sometimes people take that grace and run with it in different directions and so sometimes you might see somebody he's a very successful in a totally non religious function fashion and you realize that that was grace behind that but he didn't quite get it and what makes the difference it seems to me is at the very beginning is that first act of grace and when a person says it's for you Lord it's not for me what did you talked about is that important part of your life when you said whatever you want we'll talk about that the people how important that is well for the people who are watching that are all wrapped up and you know we don't have free will and the Lord's Prayer it says if thy kingdom come thy will be done we're asking that his will be done we're not puppets we're not automatons we're living breathing beautiful creations of God and we have this ability in this world to say yes to say no and you know in the wilderness I think I saw I did a combination yes as a nose but at at that job moment at that broken moment where I said Here I am I it I surrender it you do with what me with me what you will and God went and that's what I needed you know I you know my my husband had met Mother Teresa when he was in India he was in India in the 70s and he met mother Teresa and he worked at the house of the destitute and dying for welcome and he was he told me you know and this is not a believer at this point he told me he was humbled by her humbleness when he met her he was like oh my gosh you're mother Teresa you're amazing here and she was like F and and I I carried that with me what he had told me he carried that with me and when people say and then people would try it when I was doing this ministry they'd say you know you're so amazing you're so strong and I I use yeah it's not me it's not me that you're seeing it's God working through me this little broken vessel and that again I reiterate grace so much but it takes grace to to open that but still our freedom to respond I mean we're not puppets as you said yeah we've got a couple minutes left let's take one email in here if we can Jeanine from Arkansas writes as a Catholic growing up I would hear people talking about offering up their sufferings I never really understood how suffering can become a good thing as Lisa come to appreciate the value of suffering in a way as a Catholic oh yes yes it was odd that it's odd that that is the question that's asked because it was something I just told another Protestant friend of mine she was suffering so offer it up you know as Catholics we understand that offer the suffering up for the good and in the moment you do that there is a kind of a grace that is imparted that yes it doesn't take away the pain I still have anxiety and depression and when I have it I do offer it up because I wanted to use that for the greater good because if I could be healed of it I wouldn't want to be because if you look in the Old Testament you know we were given so much the Jews were given so much they get it and they'd become you know oh I want more and and they'd forget the suffering they'd forget the suffering of the slavery you know and I don't want to forget because it's made me a kinder more compassionate more humble so yeah you talk about the Liturgy of the hours right yes and there is a psalm that we pray every morning in the Liturgy hours almost every morning it's Psalm 95 and a big part of that is this very comforting challenging thing in which it warns us not to harden our hearts because what's the problem as on the day of mass and the wilderness when your father's tested being put me to proof the way they had seen my work they saw it for 40 years I loathed that generation said there are people who err and hard and they do not regard my ways therefore I sworn my anger they should not I rest every bishop priests religious is supposed to pray that every morning to remember don't ever take and forget the suffering forget what God has done in our life mm-hmm and that's what you're reminding you thank you well I hope so I hope so and that moment when I took the Eucharist for the first time it was it was a circle it was complete circle and I was home and not everything's going to be easy and I'm gonna suffer and I'm gonna offer that suffering up because it's a beautiful thing and the minute you offer that suffering up I mean you say you're gonna do it you're inviting a spiritual battle oh I know trust me I've been writing that dragon I was wondering do you write about that on your blog is that a big well helping people deal with that honestly I've I did the widow lady blog for years it's the widow lady on Facebook but I am now writing for my church the Lord at work and Champaign County Catholics I took over Jim copes spot as the head of evangelization which I'm doing terrible at so far but we all start somewhere but I started writing about reflections in the gospel and how we can apply them in this beautiful context and I'm trying to bring it all together I wanted to bring it all together well it's amazing when we look and see how God has prepared us all along to be available for his service Here I am Lord send me god bless you thank you thank you for joining us cherish your journey with us and our prayers are with you as you continue onward we're all in this together amen god bless you thank you for joining us on this episode of the journey home I do pray that Lisa's journey is an encouragement to you [Music] you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 19,991

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Keywords: JHT, JHT01576

Id: wGpp3G4Vr2Y

Length: 56min 10sec (3370 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 14 2017