Lightly edited from the video’s automatic captions for readability. Each time stamp opens the video at that moment. Where Lisa reads Scripture aloud, the reference links to the passage.
0:00 Host: …Harbor for quite a few years. She serves on our medical team. She also serves on our prayer team, so you might see her in Hyannis sometimes down front, one of the gals waiting if you need to come down for prayer. She is there early and often, ready to pray with you. And I’m just so grateful that you’re willing to step up and say yes to being a part of this. So take it away, my friend.
0:28 Lisa: Thank you so much for asking me to do this. I’ve never done this before. It’s a lot of people out here. But I just want to tell you the story of how I came to know Jesus.
0:44 I was 10 years old when I first saw what a relationship with Jesus could do. I was raised in a large Irish Catholic family. Two of my sisters are here — thank you for coming. I realized at a young age the difference between religion and relationship. Religion was man’s way to God, and God wanted a relationship, close and personal. My oldest sister experienced God in a powerful way that systematically funneled down through all my sisters and my mom. I remember experiencing God’s love, writing songs about it. As I grew up, I slowly continued to live my life. I married, immediately started a family. Struggling in my marriage, I prayed for God’s strength, guidance, and blessing. I became tired of the constant battle. I walked away from my marriage and, ultimately, God.
1:30 But looking back, he never stopped pursuing me. I lived my life like a hamster on a wheel. I ran to be a good person, a good mom, to be loved, to find security — all along looking for forgiveness from the guilt, the shame I felt, my past mistakes. I was trying to find purpose in motherhood, my career, my relationships. It was pretty exhausting. Matthew 11:28 [reads the verse]. My life was a mess, and I was definitely weary.
1:58 Before I left my marriage, I had five children, one heavily into addiction. I had recently lost my father. My mother’s health was failing. She looked at me and asked me, “What do you need to do to divorce that man?” Her being a Christian, I never thought I would hear her say that. She opened up her big checkbook — back in the day when they had the three big ones — and said, “Here’s part of your inheritance.” She passed away before it was final. But my life did not get any better. My niece, who moved in with me to help me — I had two younger children — died tragically. My daughter’s addiction continued to the point where I would pray for God to take her so her and my suffering would end. Apparently, God had other plans.
2:46 Years later, I was in a long-term relationship. Not married, still doing my own thing. I started looking for a church, searching for the answers for my life. I walked into a church that preached a sermon on God’s love and restoration. And though they were not preaching on sin, I repented. Instead of feeling shame, God drew me back with his love, his mercy, and his grace. I wrote my daughter’s name on a prayer card, and I put it in the box at church. And I turned my life fully over to Jesus — my daughter, my family, and my future.
3:18 Prior to this, the thought of marriage felt like a prison. But after I turned my will over, I felt the need to be married. I planned a wedding in two weeks and never looked back. I trusted in Jesus, and that he would be with me through it all. That was 12 years ago. I had been working in the ER, where young adults were dying regularly of addiction. I took care of so many that didn’t survive. I used to pray for my daughter, for God to save her, heal her, or even just take her. I would go around taking her pictures down from my walls, planning her funeral in my mind. When I turned her over to God, there was a peace knowing, whether she lived or died, that God’s hand was on her life, that he was in control. He loved her more than me.
3:54 I remember the last time she was trying to stay clean. She said to me no one would ever love her. I assured her that God did, and he had a plan. It was not the path I wanted her to take, but this path brought her back to her knees. She would tell me later that many times she would cry out to Jesus in the heat of her addiction and her mind would totally clear. My prayers never went unanswered. He was always there, and brought her back to life. She is now happily married with three kids, a therapist who prays in her office before she sees her clients. God gave her a man. When she told him about her past, he said, “I want to see what you will become,” and didn’t care who she had been.
4:48 Another daughter, who was living with her significant other and father of her two young kids, asked me why I needed to get married. I told her I wanted God’s blessing in my life, and living together wasn’t the plan that he had for me. Three months later, she married, and now has four beautiful children — one sitting right in front of me right here.
5:10 I have another daughter — I have four daughters; this is my third daughter. Divorced after a short-term bad marriage, she found herself in her 30s desperately wanting to have children. She got together with a friend she had known for years. I prayed for her to have a desire to be married, after both had been hurt in previous marriages. After three IVF attempts, they secretly eloped. She adopted his son, and last year gave birth to a healthy, beautiful baby girl. God is so good. As I wept for her, she was already married — and I’m praying for God to give her the desire. He was already moving and working miracles, and I didn’t even know it.
5:48 I prayed for my son — I have one son — for God to bring men of God into his life, to have somebody he could look up to. At his first job out of college, as an engineer, his boss took all the new hires out for coffee and said, “This is the Bible, and it has tools for life, and biblical principles work whether you believe it or not.” An actual Bible study at his first job. He’s been coming to Harbor ever since. In the past few years, I’ve seen God transform his heart, and he recently signed up to be baptized.
6:23 Another daughter was given a bottle of champagne five, six years ago, when she was engaged to her fiancé. It was New Year’s Eve — everybody has champagne. She was home, ringing in the new year. She took off the metal cover and placed her phone next to the bottle. After a short time, she went to reach over to her phone, and the cork shot out of the bottle and struck her right in the eye, knocking her to the ground. With blood in her eye, her fiancé picked her up and drove her to the ER. She called me, hysterical, telling me what had happened. She was blind; she couldn’t see. I was with another daughter, an hour and a half away, who had just had a baby. Both girls were crying, and I prayed like I had never prayed before for God to heal her, to work a miracle. I was praying in the Holy Ghost with all the authority he gives me in Jesus. I felt the power of God, his presence, his peace. Those in the car had probably never heard anything like it. And honestly, I really didn’t care.
7:16 I then called the ER and asked to speak to a nurse practitioner who I’d worked with for years. She prepared the ER and called the CAT scan, as a young new physician looked at the ruptured globe. They got emergency transport to take her directly to Mass Eye and Ear. When I got off the phone, I looked it up. It was one of the most common injuries that time of year. Minimally, she should have lost her sight, and she could have lost her eye. She was two feet away from that bottle. There is nothing wrong with her today. And I know it’s a miracle of God. She has two eyes and two babies.
7:53 Prior to COVID, another one of my daughters sold her home on the promise of a builder. Her friend would buy a property and build her a house she could afford. COVID hit. He ended up taking all the money and not finishing the property. She was in a winter rental, waiting for a house to be done. So she ended up living with my husband and me for three years. We had to finish the home on our own, borrow more money to finish it, and sell it, so we could buy a house that she could afford to live in. For two years, I kept telling her, “When that house sells, after that check clears, I know God is going to give you a house that you’re going to love.” She got tired of hearing that, I’m sure. She had gotten rid of all her furniture, and she had very few things in storage for three years. I trusted God through it all.
8:30 When the house was complete and finally went on the market, we prayed. The house sold, and when the check cleared the bank, the next day there was a house on the market she absolutely loved. Fully furnished — it used to be an Airbnb. It was fully decorated. For a year, when we looked at houses, she would walk through and say, “I would love a house like this.” So we walked in there, we offered full price, and we got this house she could afford to live in, with every piece of furniture. She walked in there with clothes. When she was pulling things out of her storage unit, she pulled out a sign she had painted nine years prior. It was the color of the kitchen tile — her family, established in 2015. God had this house for her before she even thought she needed it.
9:19 I could continue to tell you story after story, miracle after miracle, of what has happened in my life, but I only have 12 minutes. As a mom, as a grandmom, you want all your kids and grandkids to know who Jesus is. Ephesians 3:20–21 [reads the verses]. I prayed for a good church in my 20s and 30s. After decades of prayer, he brought me to a place that preaches the word of God, reaches out to our communities, being the hands and feet of Jesus, goes overseas to feed children and build churches and build an orphanage for those who have nothing. I went on a medical mission to Thailand and Cambodia two years ago, and it changed me. I cried out to God on my knees for years for my daughter, for my family, for my life.
10:06 Since surrendering my will for his, I feel like a faucet’s been unclogged, and all those prayers have been falling all over my life. Joel 2:25 [reads the verse]. This church is within walking distance of my house. It couldn’t be any closer. God has a sense of humor that way. I was forbidden to go to church years ago, but now I have a husband in ministry who sits next to me. Another miracle. Romans 8:28 [reads the verse]. The preaching in this church forced me to look at my life and totally surrender, to want God above all things. There is nothing in this world — no relationship, no career — there is nothing of value that will ever satisfy.
10:55 When bones break and heal, they become stronger. It’s just like God when he restores us. I heard a sermon once that said our scars become our testimony, and our mess can become our ministry. 2 Corinthians 1:3–4 [reads the verses]. If you are here and you feel like you’ve wasted years searching for the love and peace that only Jesus can give you, just know this — as Josh always says — if you’re not dead, God’s not done. Jesus is the one who changes it all.
11:30 Just keep coming. Keep reading your Bible. If you don’t understand, God will reveal. Pray daily for God to cleanse your heart, your mind. Pray for your children, your grandchildren. Take authority over the enemy affecting their lives like it’s your job. Pray for their eyes to be opened and their ears to hear. God is so faithful. Psalm 34:8 [reads the verse]. I’ve been taking refuge for 12 years.
11:55 If you had asked me 20 years ago if this would be my life, I could not have imagined any of it. Being part of a community that loves Jesus — not perfect, but real. People who show love, patience, kindness. Married to a man who not only sits in the church but serves, and wants to make a difference. I have a daughter who was dead in her addiction, and she was brought to life again. My other children are seeing the blessings and miracles that have occurred in their own lives and my own. I see God’s faithfulness daily. Life’s not perfect, but I trust that when it’s not, he’s in control. There is nothing he can’t do. Prayers and obedience matter. I am so grateful that even when I was far away from God, he never stopped pursuing me.
12:37 I always heard God gives you the desires of your heart. But then I realized: the closer you are to Jesus, your heart changes, and your desires are what he desires for you. He created you for a purpose. Surrender your will to his, and then you can see what he has for you. I wish I could say I prayed a prayer at 10 years old and never walked away. It’s been a life of constant love, forgiveness, redirection, and restoration. If you are young here, don’t ever walk away from the truth.
13:08 A few years ago, I heard Josh preach a sermon on prayer. He was on his knees, almost weeping. I felt like a voyeur — it seemed so personal, I had to look away. He was trying to teach people how they should seek God for their lives. I remember the years of my struggle, the pain, all the years I cried out to him. God was willing, and I turned away out of shame and guilt. It’s crazy how the enemy draws us away like he has a better plan, then keeps us in a place where we think we’re too broken for God. Broken people are his specialty. We can’t try to be good. I was a woman who exhausted herself on that treadmill, trying to fix my children, my life, and have some semblance of happiness. All I had to do was cry out to God, who was waiting for me the whole time. He used all that insanity I lived with to show me how merciful and how awesome he was. The enemy can’t lie to me anymore. All I do is pray, and trust a God who is faithful — knowing that regardless of what I see in front of me, he sees more. He loves me, and he ultimately is in control.
14:04 Jeremiah 29:11 [reads the verse]. Whatever circumstance you find yourself in, he is faithful.
14:14 There’s a song that I recently heard, and it’s so poignant to this. [Lisa closes by reciting lines from the song “Good” by Matthew West. Hear it at 14:21 in the video.]
Song referenced: “Good,” recorded by Matthew West. Lyrics are not reproduced here; they belong to their respective copyright holders.