S 2 Episode 4: Lisa Harper - Hope and Redemption

[Music] [Music] that are you know we'll start out we'll start out with okay this is Lisa D Harper I've got a MIDI is important Wow Oh a minion yeah well there is a Lisa Harper I think he's very attractive who takes naked pictures with Santa that that's not me it could be though well I probably wouldn't put him on social media some husband who dressed like Santa listen y'all you need to know who she is you need to follow her because one she'll make you laugh too after she has you dying and doubling over with laughter than she's gonna slap you with the Word of God in the most positive way and then just looking at your just Instagram alone there's joy not just the happy part not just the laughter but and y'all I don't know Krystal exaggerated so you know she's know so now y'all know I tell you that you're good I may exaggerate a little bit but it's underscored by major Trish's gracious suburb I just want to say I love learning from you I love learning from you - okay so it's Rachel for real like your happy book what's the official name of it the sacrament of heaven the sacrament of happy because don't sleep she's not just talking about happiness she's got like theology degrees and she's about to start her you've already started your diary after yeah so she's gonna preach theology have you laughing and then be really I should have paid you for this listen nauseous no I've been blessed by I call it the happy book what I'm telling people about your book I said Lisa Harper has written a happy book but I need to say you so many times people don't think being a Christ father we miss the joy yes like he is not a unibrow no way to be blessed but we can't be happy that's right that's right doesn't drive you crazy we hyper spiritual eyes everything and that's not even what he said but anyway but you embody it too so so here's my question for you one of the questions that I want to ask you I've heard you speak in person at least twice when you say you've been through menopause twice yeah yeah can you explain that I know everybody for everybody thinks I'm telling a tale I had gone I'm 55 I had gone completely through menopause like the whole nine yards before I started the adoption process and when I started the adoption process the very first time I went to Haiti at you know lost two adoptions when I started the adoption process with missing my little girl who is my daughter but she's from Haiti very first time I went to Haiti and that gift came back and I felt was just a bit of all of my job no no the thing the opposite of minute caught pause came back and I didn't have any any treats in my purse and I was like yeah in Haiti 115 degrees in the street comes back so it was it was exciting and I thought well maybe it was just under so much stress maybe maybe what happened twice two different trips Haiti so I go to my lady parts doctor and I was like okay I've been a menopause for a year and a half like I went through all that sweat like a pig you know I've been through all that and he did some tests and my my gynecologist is a believer and he said Lisa most people don't know this he said but they've actually written papers on it that oftentimes post menopausal women who adopt the estrogen kicks back up in their body sending them back in derailleur cycles and he said you know it's really like it's a miracle God knows you're about to be Missy's mother even though you're not having her in your body that's a way that you're being prepared to be a mother he said it's it's a miracle and I was like in a horrible kind of cruel joke so I I know so I wanted the soul of second menopause because I wanted to regular cycles for a while during the adoption process and and second menopause has been much more than the first but it's just a trip to me because when you really do focus on the fact that in a sovereignty of God he knew I was gonna be a mama and so you know in the same way he redeemed - I don't wanna be as old as Sarah and have kids but he redeemed her body I think there is something to that not for everybody yeah but it I thought how sweet of the Lord so I didn't I didn't love the way it worked I do love the idea of him redeeming me so I could be a mom okay so I I'm a premenopausal woman I was joking with Kerry I'm so so listen I was joking Karis my daughter because I'm like you know I can't have another one if I want to she's she's of the opinion that since she started I should be done right cuz I just I did a lot of daughters who are like that no she's like my turn Yeah right like the shower should be for me all the things but it's not sweet to me the few that I started really early and then they have a baby and their daughter has a baby it can be really sick or really cool what I find curious to know ya cuz the point of this part of the point is to just be super practical God's would rather talk about practical stuff right what counsel would you give to whoever's watching but really to me what if you if there were one two or three things that you were like you need to know like this will help you if you know this for my feeling and then going into menopause like when I start to see the signs that it's happening what what do I need K here's some practical feel like God gave you an opportunity to hear some practical things don't don't be keeping your pride shield up because I meet women who suffered for like two years because they just didn't want to talk about they're like well that's inappropriate talk about it might will at least talk to your doctor talk to your doctor I chose and there's a lot of people I don't have any strong feelings one way or the other but I chose not to do hormones just because of some issues and our family I chose not to do anything that wasn't completely extracurricular right I didn't do any extracurricular I'm not so sure I would take that route again to be very Franklin so twice you chose not to twice I chose not to and I go to a super conservative doctor and I really kind of follow doctor's orders so to speak and I didn't have any real problems but I was uncomfortable for years because I'm always hot and I don't mean that in like the you know Dre kind of way I mean just physically I feel like every room is an oven you don't always have to be miserable depending what your doctor says I would say this is a real just basic practical thing if you do have heat issues and give that they have these mattresses now and pillows that they're staking they're cooling I'm telling you saved my life I mean kept me from Custer's just for the tests I was there for the tempur-pedic mattresses or any mattress and any mattress and I've seen that with Hillary repeating I have a pillow I can't remember where I got it from I haven't used the mattress I used one and then I'm just icky about sleep but my pillow my pillow is like it just came out of so look for a cooling pillow if you struggle with if you were you with that women right most women do and then just know that you're not crazy because I think what is wrong with me obviously never feel like I'm a teenager in it my emotions skewed too high or too low okay and when I realized all right this is not my heart this is hormones you just have to give yourself some grace because typically you will skew high or low with your hormones and when you realize this isn't forever this is the first short period of time if you choose not to do anything hormonal or anything any medical intervention then you've got to have some friends around you who who knew you before mm-hmm and will tell you you're not crazy gosh you're not crazy and you're not gonna stay this way and then I this sounds cheesy but I really start to practice deep breathing because I'm in menopause Oh old menopausal new mama relatively new mom and so I really want to be patient and good yeah and there's times when you're sweating the sweats trickling down your back and going into your nether regions that you're like I don't feel patient I'm mad I'm okay and I just started deep breathing because I have a Christian counselor he said Lisa if you will 10 times breathe in through your nose and think I'm breathing in God's peace mm-hmm I'm exhaling anxiety she said if you'll do that 10 times it will at least stop your mind from going to a negative place so at least kind of give the Holy Spirit time to put his hands on the side of your face and recalibrate your attention and I started deep breathing and I'd do it now all the time when I feel myself starting to ski too high or I'm gonna yell I don't gonna be a Yeller yeah I'll breathe deeply I'll think okay Lord settle my spirit I don't kind of come back down to here and so it's not it's not horrible but it is a thing it is a I used to think women were making it up I was like you'd mean a baby you know that's right but we're not before I had a child and moms who didn't work outside the home would say I'm so tired I'd be like from doing what yeah I mean how hard could it be and then I brought Missy home was like oh my goodness I'm tired to the marrow of my hands never have a minute to myself he laundry couldn't just menopause it's kinda like that it's a thing but it doesn't have to after ever well look that's good practical practical wisdom yeah so you are a single mom yep that's good like this is so good this is like I donate by choice adoption yeah but you walked cuz you missies been home with you now for four years is that right four and a half years okay so for basically you went you were 15 then yep when you add other homeowners 50 start the process no it's 40 cent okay so you walk the road of I want to be married I don't have kids yeah and it's not happening yeah so before we get to Missy part in life yeah what would you say to women who are single who don't want to be whether it's they never married yeah or married and then for the women who really have wanted to have children and in your words because this is what you always say you know their eggs are drying up we're headed right over into raisins yes okay yeah so what wisdom as a woman who has lived single never married yeah no biological children yeah what would you say to her that she she gets the whole scripture that people throw at her well you know you can do more for God you know is that a woman go ahead Wow but the reality is that she's kind of like it's hard yeah I like this yeah why me why did I have to think okay um I'll tell you what changed my life dramatically because I I'm single even still now but I was single my 20s and 30s because I was so broken as I love that you always talk about who we are and you know she's still there my she was so broken by abuse and some sexual molestation that I quite frankly didn't really want to marry so I would say I wanted to because I didn't want to get hurt okay because I know because you were broken and you didn't want to inter broken into a marriage you were like this is a protective thing I wasn't saying I think that I was very sure yeah I got deep I just the there's some men I trusted where that trust was violated in very abusive ways I was younger mm-hmm so when I got older it was oh yeah but I'm not gonna go there now I wanted to be married and that I wanted the companionship I wanted children you didn't want to be a romance I did want it and but I'd get close to it go oh I can't cuz I dated some really lovely men who would have been good godly husbands but I just couldn't go there I wasn't mature enough I was warned drawn to you either abusive or emotionally absent minute so when I'd get close I got close to marrying a few times I just couldn't pull the trigger because I was so scared and so I'm a slow learner God had this took a long to get me I'll repeat man took a long time too and I don't mean I do this 100% of the time I think we're always an active places of Redemption but it took me a long time to truly believe that God loves me I thought he tolerated me and then it saved me I thought he saved me and I would never say this I went to seminary memorize the Greek and Hebrew were tried to about about his love about our atonement but emotionally theologically cognitively I believe God loved me emotionally and wouldn't wasn't passing through your neck no because I was I was just scared and still so wounded and so when he healed kind of the deepest toxic relational roots of my life I was in my 40s and I didn't it wasn't that this trajectory of oh I'm single I'm gonna get a kid it was well I'm never gonna get to be a mom because I was so broken during the years that I could have been a married and hadn't had my own children so I've just basically sabotage that so I'm just gonna run toward Jesus and whatever he has for me and is gonna be good because Psalm 84 11 a good thing to see withhold from him who's walking upright or her who regularly stumbles as how I hear phrase it and it wasn't tells it was at a women's conference and a woman talked about adoption and she talked about the fact that we have almost 150 million orphans in the world as we know it today many of whom will die before they even pass through childhood even usually right in the infancy because of really preventable things like malaria and having access to clean water and I can still remember crystals sitting at that woman's conference I was sitting in the back of the room I'd gone to this breakout session cuz I thought it was on missions and I love foreign missions and then she started talking about adoption my I didn't know that was even what she was going to talk about but God just arrested me and I was so struck by that and I thought Lord I didn't even know I could adopt because I'm single yeah and I've heard of they would let me write yeah and some people won't yeah for good reason but I heard a lot of people say well you can't adopt as a single because you'll be 14 guns well so I mean I wrestled with this for a long long time went to Council went to Pastoral Council and I just couldn't let go the idea that there are millions of children who will die if somebody doesn't step into the process so I it took a long time but after a lot of prayerful counsel I went to not and I an adoption agency and said I don't want a kid who has a shot at a mom and a dad but if y'all come across a situation where a child will will die or would otherwise you know languish in Morphin inch if somebody didn't step up to the plate I'd love to be considered in that situation because God's best of course would be that every kid has an intact family has a mom and a dad loving them well but that's not reality you know even in America I was just reading this report that said one out of three one out of three kids are fatherless this is in America in America the the huge majority rather know that was studying fatherlessness and recently the huge majority of the horrible shootings we've seen in our country over the last 24 months huge majority we're talking 90% of the shooters did not have a father in their home and I'm not saying fatherlessness always leads to violence right poverty but there are certainly some statistics from people outside the faith who go there is a real negative impact on kids who are not well loved by both a mother and a father but I thought you know some kids who don't have either mmm I mean if there's a child he doesn't have a shot at any kind of family you know step in the gap then of course my hope is and that happened with Missy my little girl was dying there's nobody there to take her in Haiti and they actually told me not to adopt Missy because she probably wouldn't make it back to the states she was so sick as many times as you told this story dad slays me every time as many times as you tell this story yeah and sometimes I just still am undone by the miracle that he redeemed just the stupid prideful broken places of me to get me to a soft enough point to want to be a mama to not be so scared about being hurt and then the fact that that he lets me be her mom and the fact that miss he didn't die and that she is so healthy now by the grace of God the whole thing is I feel it's it's so grace I never feel like I deserve it but the fact that he didn't you'd hit it and do it scowling it wasn't I didn't get the booby prize you know if I had gotten married and gotten pregnant I can't imagine a daughter more suited for me than missing it's the fact that he didn't let me miss it even though I was so fearful get it yeah it still slice me that's right hmm would you still like to be married I would absolutely would it's not a god just smacked me recently about this issue because you know who read of spring grass yep I had told Rita but I was just had been so content the last few years and and I I had prefaced it by saying if it's God's will I want to be married and she said Lisa I keep hearing you say you're content I was like a habit I've just been so content the last few years and she said you know when did God tell you to lay down the hope of marriage and I was like because she will rehab a loser me and I was like and he he didn't tell me and she said I think you're calling contentment laying down hope and she said that's easier to let go cousin you're not gonna you're not yeah you hooked fir'd makes the heart sick and she said unless God tells you to lay that down she said you may need to carry the hope of marriage as a burden for a while I was like punch you in the throat oh my god but it made me say cuz normally I would have prefaced that with if it's God's will now I'm like of course it would be God's good pleasure to give him asiya daddy and to give me a man who would love us of course if because of the following us have not fallen las' you know what a brokenness yes interesting call in this the brokenness in this world and because the consequences of my own poor decisions when I was younger if I don't get married God will be enough for us as a father to father less than a husband to the husband less however if and if I'm wise enough and humble enough to step into what God has for us heck yeah I would love to married it is not a focal point so I'm not gunning for a husband right I'm gunning to have my every single emotional need I have that by God but at some point you've decided to pick back up your home I've decided to pick back up my Hut and I realized there's probably too much for audience gonna go to a real big place please I can please do it is this partly caffeine and partly insomnia no I realized I there was some sexual molestation oh sure I've already said that and I realized I mean I got slapped upside the head I'm 55 still learning new truth I realized goodness gracious I all too often associate romance with rape because I was raped when I was younger and to realize my goodness I know better than that I know that's not my God my God is the one who who breathes a man to look at a woman and say I love her but because it was so perverted in my backstory when I saw about it's just been a few months gosh went Oh Lord Jesus I'm so sorry because I was afraid there now I'm comfortable with a guy who is not real into me mm-hmm but if a guy leans into me and begins to woo me I immediately feel myself not trust that and to realize where that's been broken in me for 40 years for 40 years somewhere crooked little heart out associated romance with rape so I feel like I just kind of went through a period where there were some healing where I didn't even know I needed healing and so now I'm like Lord I'm still I'm still a little bit scared but you know part of faith is doing it scared just like if you have a man for me I want to I want to live with my heart wide open trusting you with it mm-hmm yeah if another person hurts me even hurts me really badly I'd rather be hurt and be hard Wow Wow no no because I think what I'm hearing for the woman who does not have children or is not in a marriage it's first of all got to answer that no no you answered you answered it let me say what you said you said first of all if you put the hope on the back burner yeah believe that God is good enough for you to be honest about your hope right and let him take care of whether or not fulfill that and in the meantime that God can be enough that's right and then to be honest about how your hurts have maybe put you in a position where you're not willing to accept things that maybe God wants to give yes that is what I believe that is exactly what if I like the way you said putting your hope on a back burner and having having the trust in God together I'm gonna make it a front-burner issue again trusting you with whether or not I to say Missy deserves a daddy because she does and man would be so stinkin blessed to have my kid as a daughter I've begun to believe I had to serve a husband really well too but that's you know I'm still in process I listen because believing that it's okay for us to deserve that because of Who I am in him yeah not because any smart thing I've ever done but just because we're so the opposite where I start dismissing our wants our desires and our dreams because of an issue of worthiness exactly and that's where I've been I mean I I lived there yeah for a long long time and I could believe it for everybody else I can believe I mean I would be all up and some of my little sister's business to say Oh baby you've got to see yourself the way I see is you it is much easier for me to teach it than it is for me to live it of course it is for all of us yeah I will let you share however much you want to share or not but here's the question because I know a little bit of the back story but here's the question the question is [Music] tell me about your experience being a white mom who's an adoptive mom of a black daughter hmm and I can't say african-american because she's not African or Haitian and she's a right so what has that been why are you because we don't want to see you what colors God sees colors Oh come let's just yeah there's beautified sorry um I think my daughter is the most beautiful color of skin God ever made skin and I know that's biased but goodness gracious if I could sheet the other day we were talking about our favorite colors and she was telling me what she need to be true of me and I was tell her what I knew to be true I've heard she said your name is Lisa Diane Harper you were 55 years old your birthday is August 18th I said or 24th like it was hilarious but she's real proud saying she knew about me and she said and your favorite color and then Chris I swear she did this it was about the sweetest thing sweetest moment of this lesson she went your favorite color is me you're right baby I said your skin is my favorite color I didn't adopt my state because she's a Shamir can i adopt her because that's because God put us together the fact that she's Haitian American so proud I love that my baby is Asian I love their skin is brown we have received some less than favorable responses from all different ethnicities kind of racism exist in any color in any form we live in Tennessee just about 30 miles north of where the KKK was founded Oh fun so we've had I mean I probably only had her home for a couple of weeks we were walking down you'd been on Main Street and frankly it's beautiful this is quintessential small town so lovely and we're walking and I'm so proud you know you've seen me with missing when everyone with Missy I feel like I almost strike I'm so proud to be your mom and this gentleman older gentleman was walking toward us and I'm starting to lose my distance vision so I thought it was Crenna I'm thinking of course everybody would ground they see this kid she's so beautiful and so I'm grinning back nuts not till he gets about ten feet away that I realized he's not grin and he's grimacing he's kind of scowling and he spit on the ground in front of us and said that's disgusting and then called us both filthy names and he walked past and I was so stunned you know I just I felt God would that be your response but we've had that I had to sell one of my motorcycles because I had a stock sidecar one of my move yeah I have a different one now but I had a motorcycle with a sidecar and Missy loves motorcycles that's the main form of transportation in Haiti and I love to ride and so I have this Honda with a sidecar he it was so awesome you know with the glass thing that comes up over and she had a little goggles and but we had these guys they did it twice guys in a blue truck flying a red rebel flag run us off the road Kansas and and call us names because I'm white she's brown and I sold that because it's a fiberglass sidecar and I thought these foolish you know 18 19 year old rednecks run us off the road would think it's funny but if I had a four month for mailbox cut post on country it's gonna kill my kid so we've just we've seen some really ugly things on this end and you know Chris I'd give anything if I could shrug out of my skin and look like my kid but I don't and and what they don't know is how often we go back to Haiti and how I've reconnected Missy with her extended family but there's some very real issues about the fact that I'm white my baby's brown for the world not so much for us we've talked about it a lot Missy knows that and that's one of the things that grieves me is I wish people looked at us and immediately knew I was her mommy she knows it bugs me when the flight attendant who looks at the brown woman next to Missy if Missy's in the middle I'm and I'll see they look to the brown woman and go make sure you put this on your child it's all I do not to go I'm her mama I am her mama I mean so there's times I get bugged and then I go you know most profound thing happened recently she came home from school and she said mama they're doing a lesson on Martin Luther King and she said mama they killed that dr. King because he was brown I said yeah baby they did and she said mama some people won't like me because I'm brown and I said baby some people won't I said some people have really little hearts because they have really little lives and I said but you know what we do in those situations and I was going to say we trust that God protects us this he's our front garden our rear guard I was going to explain we trust in God as our as our daddy he'll protect us and she went yes ma'am we helped their hearts get bigger and I was like well yeah but I thought as long as my child has hurt and believes that people can change and I do believe most people can most people even people my own family my own family weren't so sure about me adopting Missy because of her skin color and they have fallen in love with my kid because they don't cuz I see her heart um my little brother he's a good man it was quintessential southern boy loves to hunt loves to fish and he had a rebel flag on his bumper and when everything kicked up a few years ago my brother called me and he said Lisa you know the rebel flag is never stood for racism for me and he's not he's not racist I think there's things you don't even realize yeah and other people if I have a good friend had a confederate flag hanging at her bedroom she was like should I take this down yeah yeah he was pretty innocent and it was never in your face never unkind but he said to me this stands for kind of the integrity of the south miss of the war and I'm like he's he has kind of yeah fantasized about that and both sides had a whole life of integrity but anyway he said I just want you to know I haven't said a word to him he said I just want you to know I pulled that sticker off my car because I loved Missy and he said and I wouldn't want anybody to think that I judge people based on their ethnicity and a sticker it worth that for me and I love my knees so I think most people even if there's Layton prejudice most people when they meet somebody that they thought they were prejudiced against and they love them they're like oh my goodness I was so wrong I hope our story helps some people grow and some people heal but there's times there are times when it when it breaks my heart I can handle you throwing shade my way of rest being a biracial family you throw shade on my kid and I want to tell you don't do it so do it cuz you're a Bible teacher I want you what it's it's to answer your questions to simply I believe there there's a lot of redemption in it some days it's really hard some days yes mama that's real talk yeah that's real talk you have made Missy an author and finish I'll have a book call who's your daddy can you break up listen what that's great that book is um it's about well my publisher you not have similar publishers yeah and I love them love them so much life way Broadman Holman but they asked me if I would write a children's book and I said I'm very nearly right big people books and they said now we want you to write children's but they said you have any ideas and I said no really just one I said it's autobiographical and so I explained about this conversation we had when a little boy in Missy's he was not being ugly they were having parents day at school and he had seen me around school he had never seen Missy's dad and so he just asked her in class who's your daddy just like here are you gonna bring my parents right and when she came out of the carpool line that day out to my car she just you she just looked like she was wearing the weight of the world on her shoulders and she got the card told me their conversation and I saw baby what did you say and she said I told him I didn't have a dad mm-hmm and you might as well stab me with a nice Peck and I thought for a while we're driving we've talked about this a lot but that day it winded her and I said baby you do have a daddy and I said you just don't have a daddy what's going on and so we ended up having this conversation about skin daddies and daddy God and how awesome is if you're gonna spend any but sometimes skin daddies leave or sometimes skin mommies leave and as awesome as they are skin daddies and skin mommy's aren't perfect but God is our perfect daddy he never leaves us and ever for success and so that little conversation with her is turned into a book called who's your daddy well it's great I've seen it it's beautiful I have it the art is it a good job great job great job I got to ask you this one more question before we line this up because you were on a plane and he just told me earlier today 60 out of the last 70 you've been traveling you're a single mom but you're always busy now I know balance is a huge conversation but if there were one thing that you could say to women who are doing their best yeah moms are not single parents or not yes but it's just a lot going on yeah yeah what would you say so just not keeping balance because Rhonda we don't find it and keep it right you think you're supposed to find any case that's a lie right but kind of returning to it and finding an equilibrium yeah with life I would say balance is overrated yeah prioritization is key yeah so if you're doing what God's called you to do there's gonna be seasons of AB and seasons of flow this for us is a season of ebb we are running as far as we can run and God is giving us the grace for that now over the next when I come back after Thanksgiving we're going to next week for a church event but over Christmas I've got three weeks at home you're just I'm studying and that's all yeah you're studying cuz you're working on your doctorate but but but it's what you are amazing most out of one child but you know where there's times that we run real hard and then there's times that we rest real hard and I'd say and this may sound Hallmark card ish but I mean it if you're in Christ and you're doing your best your best is enough your best is enough the I think the godliest thing I learned to do when I brought missie home is when I went to the school parties I stopped by Kroger and that's what the be very cookies ever get very sorry I do not have time to make all this gluten free paleo all kind of stuff and I'm gonna pick it up and it's gonna be awesome but I don't have time to make it now I cook maybe two nights a week because I'm busy but I order some darn good food for my kid so pressing and the places where you have capacity in the places where you don't have capacity just trust God's gonna cover that for this season I love next season I'll have more capacity in that area and maybe this maybe this ball I get to let me you know set down so don't worry so much about what you can't do just do what you can well I'm with your whole heart that's good that's good wisdom I love you and you love me when do you even then you make me cry you

Channel: Chrystal Evans Hurst

Views: 60,079

Rating: 4.9308915 out of 5

Keywords: Lisa Harper, Motherhood, Adoption, Singleness and Adoption, Marriage, The Hope of Marriage, The Sacrament of Happy, menopause, Single parent adoption, child abuse, sexual trauma, finding balance, priorities

Id: dvONo_7J10g

Length: 36min 7sec (2167 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 06 2019