Sacrament of Happy | Lisa Harper | Joni Table Talk | Joni Lamb

[Applause] well how do you walk in joy when life throws you an unexpected and sometimes destructive curveball many lived this reality every day struggling to find a reason to smile again this was the case with our special guest and her story will redefine the way you think about happiness but first joining me around the table is my dear friend Kendra Kelly Dean good to be on Joanie how you doing I'm doing great I'm doing really good I have to tell you that I love this guest today oh I love her and I was just kind of going over a little bit with her story and I already pulled out the Kleenex yeah they were like happy tears yes God is faithful I really think this program today is gonna minister just so many of you that are watching so you want to be sure in stay tuned Rebekah lamb are you ready to hear a great testimony I am ready anyway anything going on in your life [Applause] many years of praying it is here we're excited about this journey for sure Dorothy Newton how are you I am doing great doing great you know I absolutely am like Kendra I love this guest we were actually at the pink conference you and I were sitting together and our special guest I told you who it is yet was speaking in my way well she's a hilarious story teller a theological scholar and a sought-after speaker and according to Max Lucado she's one of the best Bible tour guides around will you please help me welcome Lisa Harper [Applause] it's a teacher I am T I was pulling my pants up back there to summer I'm in a fluffy season somewhere I'm stretchy pants and a ride as you said my name I was like hoping you didn't catch me in a coat the ungodly day or so you look beautiful welcomes the happiness there's a lot of unanswered and difficult questions but what if it's more divine than we think Nicola [Music] happiness is not the absence of sadness recently a dear friend of mine lost her son young son in a tragic accident so how can you ever truly be happy if you have experienced significant loss or tragedy or hardship or deep pain divorce the loss of a child even the global tumult that we're living in that's a question that desperately needs to be answered the assumption is happiness and sadness don't coexist but that is not biblically sound scripture makes it very clear that happiness deep joy and contentment absolutely coexist with grief and sadness happiness is the firm belief that God is good and God does good even when our life is difficult even when we can't see around dark circumstances God actually describes himself as happy and he says he wants us to be happy that is perfectly content perfectly fulfilled in him happiness is actually a covenant state of being for God's people sacrament is a visible expression of an inward grace it is a gift from God it's not something he tolerates it's something he gives us and wants us to celebrate happiness is literally a sacrament [Music] [Applause] well how important is happiness and does God want us to be happy these were questions Lisa had to ask herself and she is here to share about what she discovered on her journey and again we're so glad to have no I was delighted to be here think would take it took you so long to get here I know I was so excited very so let's go back because your story is an incredible story and if the enemy could have derailed you yeah he would have done that years ago there are a lot of people watching today that have gone through situations of life that are very difficult and you're gonna be able to relate to a lot of Lisa's story today but take us back to the beginning growing up in exactly what happened to you um grew up like a lot of people went my parents went through a divorce when I was a little girl my dad left us and you know if you're a kid and your parents separate you don't get all the other reasons for that I thought it must be mostly my fault you know if I had been prettier sweeter used my inside voice more maybe dad wouldn't have left and and so I was devastated by that and then over the next few years some men came and went from our family who pretended to be good but who abused my sister and I sexually molested us and that just further underscored that feeling of not being worth so how old were you and the sexual abuse I started when I was five years old and then continued for quite a while and I didn't tell my mom you know she had been through so much with my dad leaving I thought I don't I don't want to hurt her anymore I don't want to see her cry for anything else and and I also thought it must be my fault I must be damaged is why I'm being treated this way and so I believed in Jesus actually right after my dad left a pastor was preaching on how God is a father who doesn't leave his kids and so I was in this little Baptist Church in Central Florida they sing just as I am you know 672 times and I walked an aisle and and I didn't understand obviously other theological nuances but I knew I needed a dad who wouldn't leave so I was a belief I just didn't think God liked me very much and I think he can have salvation and not pretty much liberty and so I I was I was really happy that God tolerated me and I thought that was really all I would get and on through my 20s and 30s I went into vocational ministry went to seminary and memorized some Greek and Hebrew still didn't really believe that God delighted in me I believed it for everybody else but for me I thought I'm just I'm too dirty I'm too damaged and so I could I could preach grace I just couldn't hang on to it it's kind of like wet soap it was too slippery so your mom she she decided to marry tell us about the man that she married in what were you hoping for that relationship I was just desperate for daddy who loved me you know who would actually engage with me and not leave and I thought my stepdad was the dad I've been praying for because he was amazing when they were dating he used to pick me up by my elbows young you make your elbows real stiff and a big guy can pick you up it's actually what I'm going to put on my in harmony profile so maybe I can get he was really jovial and seemed so gracious when he was dating one and claimed to be a believer and they got married and that wasn't at all the the man who who he actually was and he did his best there was a lot of broken and the brokenness in his past but my stepfather was pretty he was not a loving man and he hated God hated anything to do with God when I was a senior in high school I can still remember he he took my Bible then and he said I don't want this BS although he said both words in my house anymore and he just chunked my Bible out the front door in the rain and told me when I finished undergrad and I told him I was gonna go into vocational ministry he said yours is the biggest waste of a mind I've ever seen and so it was tough you know I won't go into detail but I that was kind of my template of who a husband was I think that's one of the reasons it's not his fault you grow up and you walk in the light of the revelation you have but I was really really drawn to abusive men that's why I didn't marry my 20s and 30s as I feel like God protected me from that stereotypical abuser I was drawn to and a few good godly guys that dated God protected them for me because I was hot mess on a stick so I knew Jesus but man I was I was really broken so I was reading your story and I read it I think it was post college yeah I know this guy you were dating yeah and you know just the the mean the meanest in the gift that he had given to you all initiative as a dress I'm telling you my picker was broken so broken I told you at this point at this point I was a 24 25 maybe and I was dating a guy who actually was in ministry and I say date him we were really plating which is platonic dating means every blue moon he pays for dinner but you don't kiss so it's very unfulfilling that yeah yeah I've coined the phrase I think platonic and said well it's a sad sad state of being but anyway thankfully you will not experience it any longer yeah I was going out with this guy and and I couldn't figure out if we were romantic or platonic you know how sometimes she'll kind of almost like just be right around that area you just can't quite figure it out and he invited me to a really expensive restaurant row Valentine's Day and I thought oh the ship is definitely turning okay I mean because no guy who's just a total yeah who invites you on the Valentine's night right an elegant restaurant so you know I get all dressed up I double spanks you know already and we have our meal and we're both kind of nervous even though I knew him so well we hung out together all the time but you can tell it's just like the is kind of shifting uh-huh and at the end of the meal you the waiter comes up moves the plates and they take our dessert order well then this my date I call him AB I don't want anybody know who he is so it's short for absolute because he was custody so but his hair he signals the maitre d and the maitre d comes over and brings this just beautifully wrapped box and I thought oh crud you know didn't even bring him a card cuz I again I know that we were dating I didn't know what was appropriate for Valentine's Day and I said oh I'm so sorry I didn't bring you a gift and he said oh no no I didn't expect to get from you he said but I I wanted to give you this so I recognized the label is from like one of the most expensive dress stores in Nashville I open it up and there's this gorgeous st. John's dress and you know they're very very expensive yeah and I was just taken aback because we weren't technically dating and he buys me this really really expensive dress and when I lifted it up at the tissue paper the tag fell out of the sleeve and I saw not only the price but the size and I was a lot thinner then as a matter of fact if I weighed now when I weighed then I would have walked out here and a bathing suit but I wore like a six and he had bought me a two and I thought I I mean I cannot wear two if I wear two I'm gonna have like internal injuries and he started saying please go tribal and I was like oh no yes yes but but wait you'll see where I'm going this is not the guy you're marrying I was like it's restaurant oh no and I just kept you know hedging and finally he was so insistent I said I I can't try this on this is two sizes too small and he said Lise I know it's two sizes too small he said I checked your jacket when we played tennis the other day I know what size you wear he said here's the deal there is a line between cute and beautiful and I think you're about 15 pounds from that line and he said when you get to the point that you can fit in this dress I'm pretty convinced I'll fall in love with you and so anyway that was yeah but yeah I was so broken at that point I didn't look broke and I was an extrovert I was outgoing but inside I felt dirty and unattractive and so when he said that that resonated with me what's sad is I wasn't just drawn to guys like that I thought at some level God was like that I thought he is disappointed with me because I'm not perfect I could preach the gospel to everybody else but I didn't really cling to the fact that he sees us as beautiful so where did the breakthrough happen for you where you begin to see God differently yeah I'll tell you where the first breakthrough really begin to happen I started to study in the Song of Solomon and yeah I didn't think we were allowed to go there because it's like Danielle Steel in the Old Testament it's kind of racy but I had gone on a vacation by myself not married you know in my early 30s and I went away for like four days with my Bible and a bunch of commentaries on the Song of Solomon because I'd never studied it and I was just stunned by this love story that is about us I mean obviously there's application to marriage and and fidelity and intimacy in marriage but it's Christological you know when song Solomon 49 when he says with one glance of your eyes you captured my heart I remember just being slayed I thought God looks at me every moment of every day and thinks I'm beautiful and that was where it began to shift for me I mean it was a long time it wasn't an overnight thing but it took a while for me to really hear the love songs he promises to sing over us and and still have to remind myself you know I think sometimes I told somebody recently I think our little girl hearts people make it's almost like wet cement people can make handprints and our little girl hearts and if you aren't careful even though God is a redeemer if it rains figuratively in your life that handprint will still collect water and so I have to still be really careful about who I listen to what I'm studying what I'm a Richard yeah so you know you had to get to the root eventually before you could ever be healed and restored and then also I know the relationship with your father being restored that that was an important part of your story too but just talk a little bit if you will for people who you know you can so relate to what Lisa's saying that you just feel like you're in a rut you're stuck you can't get past that and people say and do things every day that just about on top of that absolutely and you just feel like it's got to be listed there was a moment and I'm so grateful God took me here before I became Missy's mom because I don't want my kid to ever walk under the kind of shame I did but there was a point where I just heard God's voice I've never heard an audible voice but you know sometimes his voice is so loud I mean he said this as clear as a bell he said least I'm going to take you to the basement of your life where you have been terrified to go and I'm gonna sit there in the dark with you until fear doesn't own you anymore and more than even the shame of being dirty and going all the way back to that sexual abuse when I was a kid I had to go back to my greatest fear was that I would not have anybody who stayed I had this massive fear of abandonment and I think that's really what what colored my relationship with God is I thought if I'm not a perfect girl he's going to leave me even though theologically I didn't believe that emotionally I was just always like a hamster on a wheel hoping I'd keep God happy and there were about six months in my early 40s where I mean every single day I would wake up in the morning and literally have to say the name Jesus out loud before I felt like I could step out of bed it was that you know it was like I was I was just a baby horse learning to walk again and it was it was in the dark it wasn't Rara in public and that's where I tell people boy we we don't realize that divine happiness and and and really grief yes sometimes are I mean they are congruent and so it took me grieving the places where I hadn't believed God before I was actually free you know I have a dear friend who shares her incredible testimony of some abuse that she went through early in her marriage just horrific things that happened and it was then it was in a specific house and they were there were because there was the kitchen there was the bedroom there were specific places that just had terror attached to it right and I remember the way that God healed her was in a time of prayer in a season of Prayer where he would he walked her back into this room yeah and he was like I'm just like I can't go in there and he's like no no come on yeah I'm gonna go with you and she faced it and you do have to face it and I was always with you yeah I don't mean I you know we say for the question like I cannot understand why sometimes God intervenes and sometimes he doesn't but I do believe with every fiber of my being that God never left me you know there's a line that you said that just it just breaks my heart and I just felt like someone watching they totally feel the same way and you said that I I grew up thinking that God just tolerated me and I just feel that so heavy and if you're watching and you think that's you he loves you oh yeah and just like in the Song of Solomon your heart is so precious yeah to him and he cares about your heart and he wants to show you and embrace you and love you in ways you could possibly couldn't even imagine right but that's what I love about your story is it's so real yeah it's so real there's ugliness but there's so much beauty to it also yeah that's so good well if that's a word for you today I want you to be encouraged and that that's why that toll-free number is on the screen for you to call and we want to pray with you today and have amazing prayer partners standing by ready to do that well after struggling through wounds of sexual abuse and finally experiencing the love of her dad because God did restore that relationship eight weeks before my dad died he was 87 Wow he came to know Jesus yep my stepdad that we had just a so was so desperate him to love me I got to actually preach his funeral cuz he told my mom I don't trust any other pastor he said put all these yeah talking talking to me tell you that he loved you that they did there was the last thing he said generally the last he had slipped into a coma I was trying to get home before he died mm-hmm and he came the first time he'd been conscious in 20 hours and he hadn't spoken and longer than that and when I ran into the back room my momma yelled honey Lisa's home cuz the hospice nurse had told her that hearing was the last thing to go so she yelled at my daddy that state was live and she said Lisa's here any open his eyes and I mean it was just the nurses couldn't believe it and he rolled over and motioned me to him and the very last thing my dad ever said was he said I love you that love that well Lisa's biggest battle still laid ahead it was the desire to become a mom take a look it was seven more years I was 47 years old before I was finally brave enough and believed God big enough to start the adoption process again I wanted the kid who didn't have much of a shot at a moment and the daddy because I do think that's best case scenario for for a child to be adopted by two parents but I said if there's a child who doesn't have that shot or it doesn't look like there to have that shot then sign me up and I lost two domestic adoptions before a friend called me and said just got home from Haiti and while we were there one of the end mom has died of AIDS and left behind a two and a half year old who's really really sick she has HIV and tuberculosis and cholera and doctors are saying she's not gonna make it but I thought about you as you said you wanted a kid nobody was standing in line for it would you pray about this and I said no I've been praying about this for 30 years sign me up and six weeks later I was in Haiti and they put Missy in my arms for the first time sorry she was 19 pounds two and a half years old sick as can be she reached her little brown figure up and grabbed my pinky finger and she said in this real gravelly voice cuz the tuberculosis was so high in her lungs she could barely speak she went i lo mama Blanc that means hello white mama and I was like stick a fork in me I am done and so that started the adoption process initially I was hoping it would only be a couple of months and of course that dragged on and dragged on based on Haiti's regulations I had to move her from that village to the orphanage about two hours away and that was the most difficult part of the whole journey that wasn't a year and a half in the nannies that this particular orphanage would not pick Mesilla they thought mrs. HIV was highly contagious and so she was completely ostracized in this orphanage I didn't know any of this and I went down there at that point I hadn't seen her for four months and I started sorting through all the other kids and I couldn't find Missy and I started to panic and then the closer I got to this shape in the corner I realized that's that's my child that's Missy ourself in the basement face was filthy she was just in a diaper even though she was had been potty-trained for several years by then it was like nobody wanted to tend to her because they were afraid she was contagious and so I squatted down in front of her and I said baby it's mama and when she looked up and realized it was me she just went like this and I've picked her up and when I found out a short time later she had been held probably in months I wouldn't set her down because I thought my child will never again know what it's like to know somebody who loves her it'll pick her up well this is such a beautiful story we all have our tissues well you actually had the desire to adopt for many many years and I think this story is really important for someone who's watching who people have surrounded you and told you that dream or that vision that God's given you that you need to drop it and not believe it can't happen because there were people that told you you know you don't really need to be saying oh yeah yeah when I was 40 I started the process and I wasn't sure if I was actually gonna adopt a child or if I just needed to really be involved and I just got really convicted I'd gone to this seminar that I thought was on missions and it ended up being on adoption and your name deverson James it says this Christ fathers were supposed to take care of widows nor friends and I I just was struck but it but I didn't know what to do so I thought I'm not gonna tell everybody at church because you know sometimes women disguise gossip as prayer requests I thought I'm just gonna tell the girls in my small group because they know me so I told these four girls and three of them basically said we'll pray with you just that you'll be you know alert to however God wants you to walk this out and one of them said if you have time later on this week I'd like to process this further with you and so we met for coffee and she said you know Lisa I just want to tell you I don't think God has called you to adopt she said you have shared with our group that you're sexually molested when you were younger and she said just in case you weren't fixed I know you've been a Christian counseling but just in case you weren't fixed you might transfer some of that trauma on to a child so she said I think it'd be a better idea for you to go to the Nashville Humane Society and adopt a dog and and I actually did that the next day but the adoption file in the back of my drawer when I got off work Drive the National Humane Society and adopted a chocolate lab named Sally with bladder control problems but you know here's a deal this woman wasn't trying to be mean she wasn't a hateful woman yeah she was a crooked little tree I think sometimes even believers if they've been through really serious storms or droughts and they haven't trusted God in that it's like it bends their trunk of faith yeah and she didn't believe big enough and and I should have known better I mean Jenny was 40 years old at the time I've walked with Jesus a long time I should have recognized this woman just does not have the gift of faith any marks but I almost pressed out of her suddenly to be kind to her and actually pray that her faith will be restored but I don't need to feed heed was falling out of her mouth because it's not congruent these promises to me all of those things like I've interviewed people for over 30 years but I would have the exact opposite opinion the fact that God had brought through all of this beautifully and restored you that is the very thing that would make me the most amazing that but you stop and think about like one of my favorite stories in Mark's Gospel is bartemaeus and remember he's surrounded by religious people when he goes to reach for more who go yeah you know and it's like he cries out all the more I didn't I didn't believe big enough it was seven more years before I was brave enough I was forty seven when I started the adoption process so yeah I do want to encourage everybody listening to just if God has given you a dream yeah you just keep cry out all the more and he'll close the doors if it's not his dream you don't let anybody else shut that door for you you pray and you run hard toward the dream Jesus is yeah and Landon gives us an update on Missy how old is she now she's amazing roberson pictures happy logically biased but it's just the most amazing child oh she went and aside from you HIV Circulo says cholera extremely malnourished as a matter of fact I was telling Kendra that a doctor not too long ago said Lisa I can't explain how healthy she is and I said I can't see feisty and wonderful very very sweet spirit came to know Jesus last Christmas how old is she man she's 8 years old 8 years HIV is undetectable which is just miraculous not one single scar from the tuberculosis on her lung so it really has been supernatural well I can't believe it but we are out of time I want to thank Lisa for joining us at the table don't forget to get a copy of her book the sacrament of happy and remember little Missy in your prayers I know God has his hand upon her we're gonna believe great things for her future if you've never experienced true happiness or joy in your life today is the day for you to experience that it's never too late God is ready to show off in your life if you let him and I believe it's no accident that you watch this program today because it's just maybe gonna help you get over the hump and understand hey you know what I've been through all this but you know what God's not through with me right and I am going to fulfill everything that he's called me to do again I mentioned earlier we have a toll-free number on the screen prayer partners that are ready to pray with you they're available 24/7 here at Daystar we also have a website you can go to day Starcom click on prayer send in your prayer request and we pray over those every day literally prayer requests from all over the world also be sure to tell us your thoughts on today's program by leaving us a comment on Facebook or Twitter we always love to hear from you thank you so much for watching thank you ladies but what a great story yeah a great great story you'll come back soon right I hope as soon as poss okay look [Applause] this has been a day star television production you

Channel: The Way Of Life Church

Views: 42,113

Rating: 4.9072304 out of 5

Keywords: the way of life church, groeschel, lifechurch, life.churchtv, church, god's word, sermon, Christian, bible, God, Sacrament of Happy, Lisa Harper, Sacrament, Happy, Joni Table Talk, Joni Lamb

Id: AzSgTuXdmWQ

Length: 28min 36sec (1716 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 23 2018