(upbeat music) - It's a very personal evening for me because I have been deeply
and personally impacted by a center just like the one we're here to celebrate tonight. So Deb, thank you for having me, and thank you to your team. When I was about eight year old, I remember one of my earliest memories was that my mom bought my sister and I brand new dresses for Easter. Now, this was a very big deal, because we were not very financially well-off when I was a little girl, and so my mom would
often make our clothes. So we would always have homemade dresses, and we even had homemade bathing suits. So I'll let you just ponder that. (audience laughs) We don't have any framed
pictures of my sister and I in our bathing suits, okay, so I'll just give you that little insight from when we were little girls for sure. But I remember this Easter, my mom went out and bought my sister and I these beautiful store-bought dresses, and I was so excited to see that dress hanging in my closet, that I couldn't wait
until Easter to wear it. So I went in to my closet
and pulled the dress down, I put it on, and then I
went into the bathroom and fixed my hair the very best that a little eight-year-old
girl could fix her hair. I stepped back and looked at my reflection in the mirror, and I thought, maybe tonight is the night that my daddy will think
I'm beautiful enough to pay attention to me. So I walked out into the den, and there he was sitting. He had a TV remote in one hand and a beer in the other hand, and I went and I stood
right beside his chair, and hoped that he would
at least look my way, but my dad didn't even
look over at me at all. So I did what any little girl would do with a pretty dress on, and I just started to twirl
around and around and around, and as my dress flowed out, my heart cried out, "Dad, do you love me, "do notice me, am I your
treasured daughter?" My dad never could give me
those words of affirmation because of his own brokenness inside and issues that I couldn't
have possibly understood when I was a little girl. Often, my dad would only speak to me when I would get into trouble, and he would say things like, "You know, Lysa, I never wanted children, "especially not a girl." So I took all of that hurt and all of that pain, all of that shame, and I stuffed it down in my heart. I put a big smile on my face to make everyone think that I was okay, but inside my heart, I
felt like I was dying. You know, when you're a little girl, and people start to say things to you about a Heavenly Father, and you don't understand
your earthly father because his love didn't seem
very present in your life, you start to doubt whether or not a Heavenly Father would feel
any differently about you. So I wrongly started to view myself as a throwaway person, because I thought maybe God has lovely, treasured, perfect people, and then maybe God has these other people, these throwaway people, and I think I fit in that category. Of course, that's not at all the way that our God looks at people, but to an eight-year-old girl who was confused because of the lack of her father's love, it's very easy to confuse
the Heavenly Father's love or lack thereof as well. When you feel like a throwaway person, it's easy to start making choices like a throwaway person, and so I did. I didn't follow the rules of the Bible, and I didn't even really understand what this Bible thing was all about. My dad was an atheist and my mom took us to church on holidays, but navigated her relationship with God and the realities of my dad the very best that she could, but it was complicated to say the least. A few years after that, my parents decided that they we're gonna get a divorce, and when my dad left
our family physically, he left us financially, emotionally, he just left in every way. So my mom was then put in
charge of me and my sister and supporting our family just by herself, and it was very, very complicated. My mom took on a second job and then she was gonna
need to take a third job on to try to make ends meet, and it was gonna be impossible for her to continue to
care for my sister and I. So my sister was sent to live with a grandmother that
lived about an hour from us, and then I was sent to live
with another grandmother who was several states away. When I went to visit my grandmother and stay with her for that season, things started out great, because she had financial
means to do fun things like go shopping and buy
store-bought clothes, and that was awesome to a little girl, but about, a few months into
my stay with my grandmother, she got very, very sick, and she had to go to
the doctor quite often, and when she would go to the doctor, she would leave me in the
care of a trusted friend, a man that lived down the street from her. What she didn't know was that this man had terrible problems, and whenever she would
drop me off at his house, she would pull out of the driveway, he would shut his front door and he would turn around and look at me, and he would say, "You know, "if you ever tell anyone what happens, "I will make sure your mother dies." So once again, I took all of that hurt and all of that pain, all of that shame, and I stuffed it down in my heart. I put a big smile on my face to make everyone think that I was okay, but inside my heart, I was dying. A few years after that, my mom met and married a wonderful man, and so our family kind
of came back together, and my sister and I were very excited when my mom and my stepfather announced that they wanted to have more children. So the day of my 15th birthday party, Mom went labor with
baby girl number three, and then the day of my senor prom, Mom went into labor with
baby girl number four. That was a very interesting
day, let me tell you, because I put on my dress and my date came to pick me up, and I said, "Now, before
we go off to dinner "and to the dance, "we have to stop by the
maternity ward to see my mother." That is a great pre-prom
activity, actually. (audience laughs) Yes, it is. I think it should be required for all people heading to the prom, because we got on the maternity floor, the elevator doors opened, and there was a glass window where you could look in at all those products of love, right. I remember we stood there,
and the nurses held up my baby sister, Haley. She was the most beautiful
baby I had ever seen. She had jet black hair and big blue eyes, and I absolutely loved her from the minute that I laid eyes on her. I loved all of my sisters, but I had a very, very
special connection with Haley. Maybe it's because I was 18, and old enough to have
those first inklings of maternal instinct, or maybe it was just that I was supposed to always have a relationship, a special relationship with Haley, but I toted her around that summer as if she were my baby,
and just loved her so much. Then that fall came, and it was time for me to go off to college. I'd picked a college eight and
a half hours away from home. I packed my car, I hugged and kissed everyone in my family, but I lingered a little longer over Haley. Then I said goodbye
and I hopped in my car. While I was driving the
eight and a half hours away to college, I was thinking about how desperate I
was to remake myself, sort of hit the reset button on life. I did not want to be
Lysa from the broken home with the broken background
with the broken story with the, just broken heart. I didn't wanna be that Lysa. I wanted to be Lysa from a perfect family with a perfect background, and I just decided that I knew exactly how to accomplish
that, because I had seen this very inappropriate
movie called "Grease," and everything changed for
the main character named Sandy when she got a pair of tight black pants and a big hairdo, right? (audience laughs) So that's what I thought I needed. So this was the '80s, and
the '80s were very kind to people with hair like mine, and so I could have some really big hair. You know you have big hair when your bangs walk into a room five minutes before you do, right. (audience laughs) Those of you who were familiar with 1980s and did your hair then, you know exactly what I'm talking about. We were proud of our bangs. So, the problem with that was that you can fix up the outside, and you can look really
good on the outside. You can reframe and
rephrase where you came from and what happened to you as a child, but if you do not allow God to touch, fix, forgive, and heal the inside, all the dressing up on
the outside won't matter. Because eventually, you'll hit a pothole in the road of life, and all of that pressed
down hurt and shame and fear and anxiety, all of that will tumble
back on top of you. That's exactly what happened to me when my mom called, and,
with a lot of tears, said, "Lysa, your sister Haley
is very, very sick. "You need to come home right away." I hopped in my car and I
drove home through the night, and by the time I got to the hospital, Haley was in the intensive care unit. They told my parents
that Haley had been given some medication in too high of a dose, a prescription that really, a baby should have never been given, and it destroyed her liver, and that she would not survive without a liver transplant. So they transferred Haley to the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, and Haley did make it through
the liver transplant surgery, and we were very, very thankful for that. My whole family went up there, and I remember many, many days, sitting beside Haley's bed, trying to figure out how to make a good enough deal with God where he would save her life. Eventually, Haley was healed enough to where my parents came to me and said, "Lysa, you really need
to go back to school." So the last night that I was
in the hospital with Haley, I went and sat down, and I had a conversation with God as I sat there beside Haley's bed, and the conversation
went something like this. "God, I don't know you very well, "but I would like to make a deal with you. "I will go back to school "and I will follow all of your rules, "but your end of this
deal is that you must "continue to heal my sister, Haley, "and make sure she is okay. "As long as you keep up
your end of the deal, "then I will keep up my end of the deal." Because you see, that's all I
knew about God at that point. I kind of viewed God
like a vending machine, like if I put in what was required, then he would surely
give me what I expect. I had no idea that it wasn't
just about following rules when you talk about following God. I had no idea what it looked like to have a relationship with God. I had no idea how much God loved me. I had no idea how much God's Word could help me and change me. I didn't know about all of that. So I kissed every part of Haley's face, made the deal that I felt
was the only possibility in my connection with
God, said that prayer, and then kissed her goodbye and went back to school. Every day when I was back at school, I would call my mom and I
would say the same thing. "Mom, how is Haley doing?" Every day, my mom would
give me the same reply. "Lysa, she's getting better and better, "stronger every day." But about three weeks into those very reassuring phone calls, I called my mom one day, and her voice didn't sound good at all. I asked the same question
that I always asked, "Mom, how is Haley doing?" She didn't answer. So I asked her a second
time, and a third time, and by this time, I was
almost yelling into the phone, so desperate to hear her tell me that Haley was okay. But that's not what she said. In a voice so slight,
it was barely a whisper, my mom said back, "Lysa, Haley is finally
all better, sweetheart. "She went to be with Jesus this morning." In that moment, something
in me, it just snapped. I shook my fists at God and I said, "I will never love you,
I do not understand you. "I will never, ever follow you. "I don't even think that you exist." I turned my back on God, and I headed straight into the world, determined that I would find love and happiness and significance, and I did not need God for all of that. When I headed straight into the world, determined that I would find a man to say all those things that my heart was so desperate to hear, those things that my dad never said to me, do you know what I found in the world? I did find men that would tell me that I was beautiful. I did find men that would tell me that they loved me, and that I was significant. But I also found that everything in that crazy life I was leading, everything was so very temporary. The men broke my heart and they took away what
I could never get back. It wasn't too long after that that I found out I was pregnant. I was alone, I was devastated,
completely terrified. So I opened up the phone book and I was desperate to find some help. I saw an ad in the phone book for an abortion clinic that said that they would counsel me, that they offered free counseling. That's what I needed. I needed some counseling. I didn't have any friends that I could really turn to to help process this decision. I was so very scared. I couldn't call my mom, because my mom was, most days, not even able to get out of bed, she was so overwhelmed with the grief of losing my sister. So I went to the abortion clinic and I asked them to please help me, help me know what I could do. They gave me a pregnancy test and they came back and said that I really shouldn't even
consider myself pregnant, because it was just cells
dividing, they said, and that they could take care of this problem quick and easy, and I would never think about it again. They could take away
the source of my fear. And to a young, terrified,
very alone girl, that felt like the right thing to do. So I bought their terrible lie, and I had an abortion. I remember the minute that I knew that the procedure was done, I knew they had taken my baby, but it was as if they had
taken part of my heart as well. I went home after that, and I laid on the couch
in my little apartment, and I cried out to this God that I really didn't even think existed, and I said, "If you are there, God, "have mercy on me and let me die, "because the pain is so overwhelming. "My heart is so broken." I had at that time in
my life this one friend that I not so affectionately
called my Bible friend. Honestly, she got on my nerves a lot, and, because she had a
Bible verse for everything. It was like, if I had a headache, she had a Bible verse for that. If I broke up with a boyfriend, she had a whole list of verses. I was so skeptical. How does one person have access to so many Bible verses? I mean, this is crazy, right. So she had no idea, no idea
what I was going through. She had no idea that
after she would see me at work during the day, that I would go home
to my little apartment, and lay down on the couch and beg God to let me die. She had no idea. Because you see, all
those years growing up, I was a master at hiding the shame and the pain of my life, stuffing it down inside of me and putting a big smile on my face and making everyone think that I was okay, and of that pattern continued on into this season in my early 20s. So she definitely had no idea what I was going through, but God knew, and God cared, and God
put on this girl's heart the desire to continue to reach out to me. One day, God put on her heart to write me a card and
drop it in the mail. I could imagine that when
God told her to do that, I imagined that this Bible friend could have had a conversation with God that went something like this: "God, she doesn't really care. "I can see it on her face, "when I start coming her way, "and when I hand her a Bible
verse, she rolls her eyes. "God, let me give her chocolate, "because then, maybe at
least she would like me, "but don't make me give her
another Bible verse," you know. So I imagine she could
have had that conversation, and I think all of us
have people in our lives that we assume are tired of us trying to reach them for the message of the gospel. But I'm here to also tell you, as the person on the
receiving end of that, never give up. Your job is just to be obedient to God. God's job is everything else. So she dropped this card in the mail, and the day I received it was one of the worst days
that I'd experienced, because I had done the math, and I knew it was about that time that my baby would have been due. I was just overwhelmed,
completely overwhelmed with grief. I came home from work that day, and I went to the mailbox and pulled out all of the mail, and then I went into my little apartment and threw the mail on a table. I laid down on the couch beside the table, crying like I did every night. Then I noticed in between the sales flyers and the bills that were tossed on, in the mail that was laying on my table, I notice this little handwritten card. So I pulled it out, I popped
open the envelope's back flap, and I knew immediately who it was from, because on the front of the card, there was, of course,
a Bible verse, indeed. Deb, you'll like this,
it was Jeremiah 29:11, "'For I know the plans I have
for you,' declares the Lord, "'plans to prosper you
and not to harm you, "'plans to give you a hope and a future.'" I didn't want that verse. I had no desire to read
it for a second time, accept that something
stirred deep in my soul when I read it. So I read it a second
time and a third time. By the fourth time I read it, it as almost as if my name
were inserted in the verse. "Lysa, I have plans for
you," declares the Lord. "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, "plans to give you a hope and a future." I didn't understand that verse, and I certainly didn't understand how to open up the book of Jeremiah and read it in context to see what was really
being promised here, and I didn't know anything
about the deeper meaning of the message that God
could be speaking to me. All I knew in that moment is that my whole life I had felt like, and looked at myself as a throwaway person, because my whole life, I had very much added up the
circumstances of my life, and felt like that determined who I was. So I looked at the circumstances. I was Lysa the unwanted child, Lysa the abandoned child, Lysa the abused child, Lysa the one whose sister passed away and who shook her fists at God, and ran straight into the world. Lysa, who'd made terrible decisions, and now Lysa who had had the abortion. I added up all of those circumstances, and I didn't amount to much, and my future definitely
didn't look very hopeful. But this verse stood
in such stark contrast to what I had always
believed about myself. For the first time, I started to think, maybe, just because my
earthly daddy didn't love me, maybe that didn't mean
that my Heavenly Father didn't love me. And maybe, just maybe,
this verse could be true, that God did have a plan for me, and that God did have a hope for me. Now, I didn't know what to do in response to this possibility, and I certainly wasn't going
to call my Bible friend, because if this thing didn't work out, she would have ammunition
forever, you know. So I did the only thing that
I knew to do in that moment. I just knelt down on the
floor next to the couch, and I lifted up my hands and I said, "Yes, yes God. "If you want me, and if you
really do have a hope for me, "and there really is a future for me, "show me how, how is this possible?" Well, shortly after that, I felt this stirring in my heart to call my mother-in-law and tell her about the decision that I had made. Now, she wasn't my
mother-in-law at this time, she was my future mother-in-law, but I called this woman named Sharon, and I told her what had happened. Sharon worked at her local
crisis pregnancy center and she said, "Lysa, if you go there, "they will help you." So I said to Sharon, "Sharon, I don't think
you really understand. "I am the exact person
that a center like that "would probably hate, "because I didn't call them. "I didn't even know them, "and I've already had an abortion. "So I definitely can't
go to a place like that." Sharon assured me that when I would go, that I would be met with love
and grace and forgiveness. Then she said some words that resonated so deep in my heart, she said, "Lysa, they will help
you have hope for a future." I remembered that card that I'd read, and I'd asked God those very things, like, God, show me how to have hope, show me that you really
do have a future for me. So I called my local center, and I told them that I
wanted to come and see them, but I would not meet
in any sort of a group, and I would not walk in the front doors, because I was too ashamed. So if they could have
one of their counselors meet me at a back door, then I would walk in and
just sit in a back room, and then I would talk to whoever they had there to talk to me. They were so sweet. They said, "Absolutely,
we'll do that for you." So I had one friend in my life that by this point, I
had told my story to, and she agreed to drive me. She dropped me off at this back door, and I walked in through the back door up a back staircase, and I went and sat one-on-one
with the counselor, and she told me about a
post-abortion Bible study, and she asked if she could
lead me through that. She sat in that little room, day after day, week after week, and she helped me meet this God that I'd never really understood. She helped me find a hope and a future. It was shortly after my
last meeting with her that a friend asked me to join her in starting "Proverbs 31 Ministries," and I can tell you that I
would have never believed what my life could look like today had I not gone to find the
help at my local center, much like the very same help that "Her Health Women's Center" gives to women in this area. If I wouldn't have found that, I promise you, I would
have never, ever ever, been able to teach the Bible, do the ministry that I do today, and really believe that God could love, forgive, and use a woman like me. Today, I have the amazing privilege of teaching millions of
women every single day about the love, and the
grace, and the forgiveness and the truth of God, truth that I never had
when I was growing up, but truth I'm determined to give to women every single day, and I
get to do it to millions, and it all can be traced back to the help that I found
at a center just like "Her Health Women's Center." You see, they not only help save babies, but they help save women as well. What an opportunity that is. (audience applauds) When you support "Her
Health Women's Center," you are not only supporting women who are in desperate need to find a place where
there's real counseling, how I wish that I would have
walked in the front doors of "Her Health Women's
Center," like I did today. I got the opportunity to tour the center, and I thought, if I would
have had this opportunity, if I would have encountered
your center, Deb, when I found myself in that
very, very difficult position of being pregnant and alone. Their center is so beautiful, it looks so professional. It's warm and it's inviting, and I promise you, the
counseling that they offer there is real counseling. If I would have had that opportunity, I would have made a different choice. If I would have had the opportunity to see that it wasn't just cells dividing, but if I had the opportunity
to have an ultrasound and to see that it really was a human, that it, there was a beating heart and there was a human that was forming, I would have made a different decision. Not only do they help women
who are in that situation, and give them every fighting chance to make a really healthy, good choice, but they also provide sexually
transmitted disease testing, they provide counseling for those women who have made the choice
to have an abortion, and they give every fighting chance to people who are in
the most desperate place that their life has ever known. They give every fighting chance for them to hear the greatest life-saving news, and that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. I honestly cannot think of a better way to invest and steward the money that God has entrusted to us in a really, really good way. I would like to invite our
table hosts at every table to distribute the pledge
forms in your packet, and I would think that maybe many of you came here tonight and you
had a certain dollar amount in your mind than you wanted to give, but I would just ask that
you prayerfully consider, if there's just even a little bit more that you could invest in this center, in "Her Health Women's Center." I think it's important to note that "Her Health Women's Center" does not receive any government funding, but relies solely on
the support of churches and community groups and
individuals who have a passion to take a stand for life, every life. I ask that you would join me in giving to this center
in two possible ways. Would you prayerfully consider a generous one-time
contribution this evening? Or secondly, monthly giving is a tremendous way that allows the board and the staff to make financial decisions regarding the ongoing work and ministry of "Her Health Women's Center." Like Deb said, if every
single one of us here today just committed even $13 a
month or $26 per couple, that would aid them in meeting the budgetary needs along with
the generous matching gift that's been given that this center needs. So will you prayerful consider exactly what the Lord would have you do, and on behalf of every other woman, every other young girl that has ever walked into this center, that maybe has made some choices that we don't support, but might we consider
being that voice of truth, might we consider that life sometimes really, really is hard, and the girls that are
coming to these centers, the girls that walk in and out of the door of "Her Health Women's Centers," they need to know that life is possible, not just life for them
and life for their baby, but that eternal life, the life-saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. So when you invest in this center, you are not only just
investing in this ministry, but you're investing in the kingdom, you're investing in the exact work that I believe God cares
about so very, very much. Thank you for letting me
share my story tonight, thank you for letting me put a face to what some people call an issue. I don't think that the
abortion topic is an issue. I think it is something that God's people need to rise up, and with great grace and tremendous mercy, invest until there are
no more lives taken.
