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Foreign.
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Hey, girls, it's Cigna Coleman, and you are listening to episode five of our summer recap series here on the Grove Podcast. Today, our very own Grove girl, Lisa Harper, is joining Shelley Giglio to have an honest conversation about what it looks like to truly know the God of the Bible and not just know about him. Lisa shares how God has faithfully pursued her through so many seasons of fear, loss, and transformation, reminding us that the Bible is not just a rulebook. It is truly a love story. And the same God who wrote it is inviting each of us into deeper relationship with him. We know this conversation will encourage you, so let's join Shelley and Lisa.
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A
We're on the Growth podcast together. Lisa Harper.
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C
I look at you, and it's like my heart starts going, I love you so much. I feel the same way. I love being with you.
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A
We love being together. And it's a gift to have a friend like that.
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C
That's why I couldn't wear shorts, because everybody would see my Shelly tattoo.
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A
Well, they would actually see your tan legs because you've been at the lake some this summer, so you're feeling pretty
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C
good about that light together.
[01:15]
A
We had a little moment at the lake. Can we just talk about that?
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C
Just to start off without the suicide pack? Yes.
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A
Well, now, was the video approved that you took of me, the Holy Spirit?
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C
The Holy Spirit was not. Well, here's the deal. You are, like, one of the godliest women I know. I think the world should see you in a modest, appropriate bathing suit.
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A
I actually had some kind of wrap on.
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C
You also had, like, 45 pounds of jewelry.
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A
And, well, I wasn't really intentionally going
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C
in the lake, but it was your compassion for Missy. It was when Missy.
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A
So Missy said, do you want to swim with me?
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C
I know you couldn't say no.
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I totally do.
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C
Oh, I love the way you love her.
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She's precious.
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C
What's cool to me is Missy doesn't know your passion Shelly. She doesn't know your Shelley Galea. She knows your Aunt Shelly. That's so sweet. And so she. She wouldn't think twice about asking you to jump in that janky lake with her.
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A
I totally did and was happy to do it. Although being videoed was not approved.
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C
And Slow Mo.
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A
Oh, my gosh. Literally the worst sound I've ever heard is when I listened to the sound on that video.
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C
It was.
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It sounded like I was an underwater
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C
creature being hit by a car. But you still looked amazing.
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A
Well, thank you.
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C
I was like, people need to see that you can study your Bible and look like that to be encouraged. It was fun. You know what my favorite part of being at the lake with you was? We can dive in so deep and then we can lie on the couch and read a magazine side by side, not to say anything. That's just the kind of friendship you want.
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A
I do remember best, though, that the night I had gotten there, I had flown to Nashville early that morning and worked on a project. And then I had driven to your lake house, which isn't that far from there, but a little ways. And then we had had dinner together and had a really great night. And at 1:30 in the morning, your daughter came in to say, do you know what time it is? We were still chatting as though it were six in the afternoon.
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C
And she was like, I think maybe
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A
we should all go to bed.
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C
I was like 14 year old.
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We put her in charge of us.
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C
It was lights out. That's how I feel with you, though. Every time. There's never enough time.
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A
That's it. That's a g. I love you being on the Grove podcast. The Grove women love you, Lisa, and it is a special relationship. I think in over years you've been here with us, which has been amazing. But I think as people are listening to the podcast today, one of the things I really want to talk about, which I think people will be interested in, is how you feel like you're on a mission. And it's not just to teach the Bible to me, but I think you're also on a mission as you're teaching people the Bible, to teach them to think rightly about the Jesus of the Bible so that then they can relate to the God of the Bible in such a profound way themselves. And it might be one of the reasons we're as close to friends as we are, because I feel like we. And I don't want to get into the negative side of it necessarily, but I just feel like sometimes as believers, we do people such a disservice by basically making them believe that our study of the Bible is what's going to help you. Exactly. Instead of helping you understand that your relationship with God is contingent on you studying and knowing the Bible and more than the Bible, knowing the God of the Bible. And I feel like you cross that line so beautifully between I'm going to just teach you the Word, which you do an amazing job of, but I'm really going to teach it to you so that it encourages you to know and understand the Word. So talk about that, because it's. It's really Teaching theology is what you're doing there.
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C
I can't remember that old adage, you should know as a part farm girl. What's the thing about giving somebody a fish or teaching them how to fish?
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A
Well, it's basically like a livelihood is in the teaching how to do.
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C
Yeah, you don't want people to be consumer Christ followers. And I grew up in a stream of the church, and I'm so grateful for it. That had a high regard for Scripture, but it was kind of disseminated once a week at church. And then you had Bible study and you filled in all your blanks. And then I went through a real season of just doubting a lot of stuff. I'd seen some moral failure in the church, and I was just so disappointed by that. And then I just. I saw some things that I didn't expect to see in church or from church people. And I decided I can't quite get away from God. I still believe in God, but I don't want to be around religion. And so I went through a period, and I'm not saying it was good rebellion, but there was some abuse in my background as a kid. And so I had used my. I don't have a great mind, but I have a very vigilant mind. Cause that's how I stayed out of trouble. If I could read a room, I could figure out who was gonna take me in the dark and hurt me. And so I applied some of that same. I'll just call it vigilance to what is true about God and what is tradition that has been told about God to me. And the only place I felt like I could really find the truth was in Scripture. And when God began to kind of jump off the pages of this, and I went, it's not a rule book. This is not. It's not a textbook. It's not a collection of benign morality tales. This, at its core, is a love story. Shelly. I remember being blown away in my 30s. I'd been in vocational ministry, you know, right out of undergrad. And somebody had given me their beach house for a weekend. You know, when you started out in ministry, where all. It was like ramen noodles and the gospel, baby. And I went to this beach house and it rained the entire time. And all I had with me. I don't know what possessed me to have a commentary on the Song of Songs, but I did. And maybe because I was single and thought I need little Daniel Seal in the Old Testament, but I had a commentary on the Song of Songs, and I had My Bible. And so there's nothing else to do. I was kind of in the middle of nowhere. I started studying the Song of Songs and found out later that in rabbinical tradition, they don't let gentlemen who are studying to be rabbis even read it until they're 35, because of the intimacy and the Song of Songs. But I remember as a woman who's grown up in church, I gave my heart to Jesus when I was five, all these years later going, oh, how come I'd never seen this? How come I always thought this only applied to intimacy and marriage? But the God of the universe is saying to me, with one glance of your eyes, you captured my heart. And so I won't say this well. Cause, you know, concise is not my gift. But I'd say my greatest passion, my greatest kind of purpose and passion at this age and stage of life is to help people move a little closer to Jesus and begin to believe that this is not dead text. This is a love story. So when people go, you know, I started reading my Bible because you seem so excited about it, or you told a story that made me feel some sort of. But you tied it back to scripture. I don't give two hoots if they remember what I taught, but I care very, very, very deeply that people go, oh, that's a love story. And the story about how God loves me is on every page. Because I think our culture is increasingly leaving biblical fidelity. We've got amazing podcasts, we've got amazing tools to study the Bible. We've got phenomenal commun. So we kind of like our Bible in bite sized pieces. And we get into a lot of trouble there. When we hear somebody say, well, the Bible says if we don't know it for ourselves, I'm like, well, actually, they took that verse wildly out of context. That's not what.
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A
You know that if you knew more of the Bible.
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C
If you knew a little more of the Bible. I think the fact that we're hemorrhaging people from Christian culture isn't so much about what the church is doing right or wrong. I think it's an issue of biblical illiteracy. I think because so many times this is used as a club instead of a love story. People pull out clobber text instead of the fact that if you look at every story hangs under this canopy of a good God. That's theology. You know, people hear the word theology and they think, oh, old man, black socks, dusty office, no theology. At its root, theos in the Greek refers to God Logos refers to conversation. Theology is having conversations about God. It's what you do every single day. It's what Grove. The Grove is doing. There will be women who come to the Grove, hopefully women who are listening to this, who go, yeah, I'm not so sure about this whole Christian thing, but the idea of a God who loves me, that's compelling. So theology is not an elite or an arcane subject. It's conversations about God. And he's not a proposition to study. He's a person with whom to engage.
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A
You make it so appealing. And I think that's a lot of what people are drawn to in you. A, you're real, which thank you for not putting a posture on that. We then have to come through so that we can see. We just see you. We see you in it. We see the beauty, the highs, the lows, the flaws. It doesn't feel like it had to be all polished up. And I think church has done a disservice to people in years and years and generations of showing people that you need to clean yourself up. Then you can be a presentable person to talk about church or to represent God in some way. And I think the truth is that we're all human. We're made of dust, fallible in a thousand ways, make good choices and bad choices on a daily basis, not just once in life, but all the time. And so we're all just inches away from catastrophe, right? At our best, at our very best,
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C
at our very best.
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A
And yet God chooses to use people like us to bring his kingdom to people. And I don't understand it fully. I will never be able to speak on it because I can't fully grasp it, I don't think. But that that was his plan and that he can use us is awesome. But the fact that you can. We can show ourselves as human in the midst of it, so that it's not a perfect thing, that it's a work in progress. And I think that's what people love and appreciate about you, and it draws them to God, because if he can tolerate somebody like you. Lisa.
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C
Exactly. Exactly. I mean, and that is so the truth, so true for all of us. So I can't even tell you how much I appreciate you choosing to see the part of me that is honest because I was a poser for a lot of years, because I thought I really, at the core of me, thought I was rejectable. I thought I wasn't worthy of staying with. I thought, how in the Sam Hill could a perfect God like that delight in a woman like me, much less allow me to say his name with a microphone attached to. And it took a long, long, long time to actually believe the liberty that comes with being loved by Jesus. I, at some basic level, got that I needed deliverance from my sins. But I thought I had to curate my emotions. And I thought I could only bring kind of the happy, clappy perky parts before the Lord or before God's people. So all the messy, the sad, the lonely, where I felt like an absolute failure. I spent a lot of my life scared to death somebody would look under the hood of my life and not like what they saw. So I presented what I hoped would be acceptable. So the fact that now at 60, you know, the cool thing isn't getting discounts at fast food restaurants, the cool thing is really beginning to believe what we've been preaching, that he's such a kind creator redeemer, that at my worst he decided before the beginning of time that he loved me. He already justified me. The plan of the gospel was not a knee jerk reaction. He knew eons before I was born, that I was his, that I was his beloved. So there really is nothing I can do to make him love me more, to make him love me less. And the freedom in that intimacy with Jesus isn't about good behavior. It's about believing, oh my goodness on my worst day. And you've seen some of them?
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I've seen a few. You have more.
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C
You know where a lot of the bodies are buried in my life. And because you're a good friend, you choose to see what is redeemed or redeemable. To know that God loves me infinitely more. And even in his discipline, he believes the best in me. I'm sure you've probably taught on this before. Louie's preached on it. But I saw this fresh the other day. I was reading on the two miraculous feedings. You've got the one in all the gospels where it says he fed the 5,000 with one little boy's chick fil a sandwich. But then there's a second feeding. And that time we're told that's only in two gospel accounts, there's two miraculous feedings. Second time we're told he fed 4,000, so it probably would have been about 12,000. And here's what struck me. And again, I'm sure, sure you've already seen this, but if I had seen it, I had forgotten it. You know, there's so many great things about scripture that you relearn.
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You relearn, yes.
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C
Or you relearn it better.
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That's why you stay in it.
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C
Yes, I love Dr. Craig Keener. I was just telling you one of my favorite living scholars. I love all the dead guys, too. But Dr. Keener is alive and well. He says if you get out of the Bible what you're expecting to get out of Bible, you need to raise your expectations.
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That's it.
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Always bigger, always better. But I saw, at least for the first time I can remember that the disciples response, they're living with Jesus. They're not just churching it once a week. They are with him shoulder to shoulder 24 7. And when he takes the fish and the loaves and there's 15,000 people on the hillside, they go, how? Like, how is this gonna work? I mean, we are gonna be. Everybody's gonna unfollow us because everybody's gonna go away hungry. They don't know how he can do that. Second time, they have seen that one. You went a little meal, you just divinely, exponentially multiplied. They've seen all the baskets left over they got to take to shelters. I mean, they've seen all this. Second time, their question is, how?
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How?
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And I just love that I'm like you yahoos. You're just like me. I've been walking with Jesus for 55 years. He's been nothing but faithful, nothing but perfectly compassionate and present, even in his discipline. When he spanks me, he holds me. He has been such a good God. And I still ask how? And instead of frying me into a grease spot of oblivion, he again calls me to himself and teaches me something again and again and again. And so I. I'm at a place in life where I still have deep ends. I'm not afraid I'm going to drown anymore. He's rescued me so many times that I can float with a lot more security than I used to.
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A
That's so beautiful. Talk about Missy a little bit, because we've talked about her several times before and we'll probably talk about her the rest of our life and everything we
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talk about every day for the rest of my life.
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But she's taught us both a lot. I think you as our mother, just an intense amount of a. Maybe what God thinks about us in a better sense, based on what you think about when you think about her. And it makes me tear up because I know God would have known without Missy that we would have understood at some level, the best we could how he felt about us. But I know with her, it makes it a lot more tangible. You know, when I read Psalm 68, where it talks about that God puts the fatherless into families and how he. He just is always like you talk about him, with his kindness and in his kindness making a way and a place for us. And when I think about Missy being born in the absolute difficult situation she was born into, I could see so clearly because of you moving toward her, that his plan of rescue for her was you. But what it helps me see more than anything else, that his plan of rescue for me was Jesus and how he intentionally set that course before I was really even around. So before you knew you would adopt and before you knew that Rita spoke over you. You're gonna have a little girl. And before you knew all the pieces were gonna be in place for you to bring home, that God was looking at her with such compassion and with such purpose. And what does it do to you? Not just insides. And I don't want to make you cry again. But really, what is it? How has it helped you love God more than you ever loved him before?
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C
It has been chill. You know, I have so many words, and I never can find the right words for how kind he's been through this. Getting to be Missy's second mom. I think of her first mom, Marie. She died when Missy was just two years old. And she didn't get to know Missy because she was so sick. She was really just eviscerated by AIDS before she gave birth to Missy. And in that society, she was hidden because of voodoo culture. They were so ashamed of her. And I can't imagine not being able to raise a child that I carried and loved so deeply. And so I think for Marie, who loved Jesus, I think about her all the time. I think about the day I get to meet her in glory. And I don't know how much of our memory and mind we'll have. I know it'll be perfect. I know the psalmist says, when we see Jesus face to face, it'll be enough. There'll be no more crying and no more dying. And I know there are some parables where those in heaven recognize those here on earth. So I'm just believing we'll know each other.
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I hope so.
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C
And I can't wait to say thank you. And can you believe what he's done with our girl Missy? My counselor, I go to Christian counseling on a pretty regular basis. That's a real means of grace in my life. And my counselor said, missy does not have an orphan spirit. You have had an orphan spirit. And so even though Missy was literally orphaned. You're the one who always felt fatherless. You're the one who never felt like you were enough. And she said you were the lonely, he said, in a family, by allowing you to become Missy's mom. So beautiful. And so she's not my hope. Jesus is my hope, but Missy is tangible grace, because I didn't deserve to be her second mom. And I'm not saying that in a woe is me kind of way. I just, at my age, had missed that window. I was so, so flipping scared of intimacy in my 20s and 30s in any way, romantically. I wasn't a good friend in my 20s and 30s because I shucked and jived and just showed you what I thought you wanted to know. So I was dishonest in that way. I wouldn't let people care for me. And so the fact that our God is so kind, that Psalm 84:11 says, no good thing will he withhold from those it says from those whose walk is upright. In some translations, I have my own little paraphrase. This is not sound. I want you to know this is my paraphrase, but my paraphrase is, no good thing will he withhold from her who often stumbles. Because, you know, I was raised in church, had a mama who knew Jesus. There was some abuse. My dad left, but. But I had some good stuff, and I was scared. Missy had almost nothing but pain and loss and starvation and sickness. And my kid believes the best. And so I see the gospel when I see how God allowed me, refined me to the point that I could actually be a relatively healthy mom and then gave me this kid who needed a parent. It's just, you know, it's a. For me, it is a very palpable metaphor for how God redeems what we think is irreparable.
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A
Yeah, I love the part where you were just honestly saying that, you know, that you were the one who needed a family. And I see that work itself out with you and Missy every day. I see your life comes from your relationship so much with her, and it's like you had a life. You had a very full, active, amazing life. It wasn't like you were really even missing anything. But then when I see you with her, it's like nothing existed before her. It just feels. And I see that with a lot of moms, you know, who, maybe some who didn't even think they would be a mom, but then to see their mom heart come to life when they are, it's been beautiful to watch.
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C
Filled a huge hole that I didn't really know was there. And oftentimes I wouldn't go there because it was sad or I was scared about it. Levi Lusko and I were talking about this recently. I lost two adoptions prior to Missy. And then I almost didn't get to bring Missy home. And when they told me I probably wasn't gonna get to bring her home, I was supposed to bring her home one October, and I'd already decorated the house for Christmas, and I had put stockings on. The man given me stockings that were embroidered Missy and Mama. And I remember like it was yesterday packing those stockings because they told me I wouldn't ever get to bring her home. And I thought, I'll just move to Haiti. I'm her only advocate. Even if I don't get to legally be your mom, I will move to Haiti. I was in menopause then. I was always hot anyway, so I thought, I'll move to Haiti. But I remember putting that stocking in a box under the stairs in a closet and thinking, I don't know, that I can ever really celebrate again, because I feel like my heart's been ripped out of my chest. But what he taught me in a way that I could, I think at least hold onto it tighter than I've been able to before, is that he is enough for me. Missy has fulfilled a dream and a hole in my heart and all these other things. But he taught me more through Missy that she's not enough for me, that he's my hope, he's my anchor, he's my joy, he's my peace. And it was in the dark that I didn't get Missy. When I think I finally went, I was afraid God wasn't enough for me. And I thought, if I don't get to have somebody with skin on who doesn't leave, husband, kid, whatever it is, I just don't think I'm ever going to be able to hang on to joy and peace. And it was actually in losing two adoptions and thinking I wasn't gonna get Missy that I sensed God say so kindly, not callously, so kindly, am I enough for you? And I had to confess.
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A
I don't know.
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C
I don't know. And he was just so present in the dark that. That I think I'm more grateful for those dark nights than I am for the Christmases that now have five or six messy stockings. I'm sure you do around the house now. But I'm so grateful for the dark, because fear doesn't own me anymore.
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A
I'VE been reading your book and I don't always talk about everyone's books. In fact, we don't usually have people on the podcast. We just, I don't know, it would be easy just to talk about people's books because obviously when you write a book, you care deeply about the content, contents of it. And it's important for me to elevate what's important to you, but I just don't always bring it up. But this particular one captured my attention because its title is Jesus. I mean, if you're going to write a book, let's just go ahead and title who we're talking about. But then you devotionally do your Lisa Harperisms all through this book. And the way you take stories and help people understand Jesus heart is so beautiful to me. And like in one of them, it's toward the back of the book you write about turning a certain age. I won't say what it was, but in saying if I don't have a husband by that age, I'm getting a Harley. Right?
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C
Because and I did. I literally am like Lisa, half Baptist. You always need an excuse for leather pants.
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A
I'm literally like, if I don't get a hug by the time I'm 40, I do believe it was 40, that I'm definitely getting a Harley.
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C
Absolutely.
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A
And you did get a Harley. And then you turn this into this conversation about Peter and the way he denied Jesus and yet Jesus took him back and made him the center of the heart of the church of the future. And I am just like, how did you tell a story about you getting a Harley instead of a husband and turn it into that? But you are a master at taking the simple things of life and the decisions that we've all made in life and things that have marked our lives. And certainly not having a husband has marked your life.
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C
Absolutely.
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A
You know, it's, it's different. It's different than a lot of people's lives. But singleness has also defined you in such a beautiful way. I think the way that God has redeemed singleness in your life is one of the most stunning things I've ever seen as a friend. I love single Lisa Harper. I love her. And if you had a husband, I would love him too. But there is nothing missing to me in my relationship with you given that you do not. And I think even your willingness to be open handed enough to take a story, that is painful. I wish the choices were different. I wish in some ways they had ended differently or been different, but they Weren't. But to use those very things as something that are teachable ways to push people toward Jesus.
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C
I wish I had been less toxic when I was younger, relationally. I wish I had been able to lean and into romantic intimacy. I mean, there's a lot of things I would do differently, but I think we all would. Absolutely. We're yahoos. It's three steps forward, two steps back. But the thing I was reading this thing yesterday that said the body of Christ isn't a metaphor. And how he chose to send our Redeemer embodied, incarnate Jesus. And he chose to make us as Imago dei, his image. We embodied. And I think so often in Christian culture, we almost try to be ethereal beings. And the regular stuff of life. I'm sad. I'm not getting husbands. I'm gonna get a Harley Davidson. I need to get my endorphins out some way. You know, the I'm sad here or I get with Shelly and I belly laugh so we can eat more carbs. Cause I will work on my abs, belly. Just the regular things of life. Friedrich Buechner is another one of my favorite recent passed away Bible scholars. And he says, this life itself is grace. It's not just Sundays. It's not just Bible studies. We carry the Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. So when I'm with you 96%, I think of the biblical imperatives when God tells us to do something are set in the context of community. It's not holier when I'm with you at the Grove than it is when you and Missy and I are giggling at our redneck little lake happy place. It's different. We have a different pursuit. But it is worship when we're just occupying space because we carry Holy Spirit, we are embodied creatures. And I used to dismiss especially my frailties because I thought, oh, goodness gracious, this is gonna hurt God's reputation. And the part of me now that goes, I had a woman come up to me. This is a couple years ago, but it was. This is. So this could be my tombstone. I was standing outside a door church. I won't let it, though. She came flying up to me and she went, I am so glad you're teaching Bible study now. Because before you, it was all these skinny blonde girls. And I was like, are you saying I'm a chunky brunette? What she was saying was, you don't look perfect. You don't look like you have it all together. And I thought, you know, I take that as a huge compliment because I used to think I had to have it all together. And I'm not saying sin is no big deal. I'm not trying to act like holiness isn't. I want. I want to have a Christophormic life. I want to be shaped like Jesus. I want to be kinder. But I just am. I'm not trying to curate my emotions anymore.
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A
I'm trying to get.
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C
Lord, let me.
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A
That's a powerful phrase, isn't it? I think you talked about that earlier and you said I was in touch with a lot, but I wasn't in touch with the fact that I didn't have to curate my emotions. And what do you think opened up that clarity for you?
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C
Failure. Yeah, failure, loss and loneliness.
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A
Talk about that. Because I feel like so many people are stuck. They feel like they're still presenting themselves instead of really experiencing the kind of freedom that's been offered. And we talked about it today. We had a little tech stream going with Grove girls. And, you know, somebody was mentioning how powerful it is, what Jesus has done for us and how freeing it is if we truly received the gift. And my response was, my favorite part of the Bible is the word done. It is finished, it is over. I don't have to earn or do or present or clean up or, you know, pretend anything.
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C
Right.
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I already have received.
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C
That's right.
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A
What was perfectly done for me. But you say loss defined a lot of that for you.
[32:57]
C
Talk about that process done in the context of the gospel implies need. We need something done for us. It's one thing to talk about the gospel, the grace of the gospel, Jesus died for us, but to actually own the fact that we couldn't save ourselves. Because I think we exegete grace, but we live like we're still trying to do better, be better, so that he won't have had to expend too much energy saving us. And so I raised in church on my mom's side, soon out of undergrad, went into vocational ministry, youth ministry, worked for a large ministry out in Colorado, where I had to wear open toed shoes, by the way, because I was told the line between my big toe and second toe is reminiscent of cleavage. And even then I wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. But I thought, you know, if some man is stumbling because of my sandals, he's got bigger issues.
[33:52]
A
I don't know.
[33:53]
C
So I don't believe I've done really great with religion, but I've been in ministry. And this was 15 years ago, Shel. So I was 45 years old, I'd already gone to seminary. First go around, memorized just enough Greek and Hebrew to be dangerous, and I hit a wall. In my life, I'd always been really good at pretending. And I'd always been really good at curating my emotions and doing what I thought everybody wanted or needed. And I was horrible at needing, even with God. I was really good at being a dutiful Christian, being intimate. That just wasn't my strong suit. I was always afraid of abandonment. And I lost two primary relationships, and I wasn't sure I could live without the loss of one of them. And I was diagnosed with cancer that initially presented pretty serious, ended up not being a big deal. But all that happened in the same week. And I remember thinking, I can't carry the weight of my own life anymore. I just didn't have the energy to fake it anymore. And God said. I've never heard God's audible voice, but this was so loud. It may have been audible, and I just don't know it. It was so clear and so loud. I remember exactly where I was. I lived in this little cottage in Leapers, right next to Franklin, and by myself. And I heard God say so loudly in my spirit, lisa, you've been running scared your whole life. And so I'm going to take you to the basement and I'm going to sit there with you in the dark until fear doesn't own you anymore. And I was scared to death of being needy. I was scared of the dark. I was scared of failure. I was scared of anybody really seeing what was behind the curtain in my life. I thought I was rejectable and dirty and damaged some of the scars from sexual molestation. I knew better. I could tell you in a cross stick of why I didn't have to wear shame anymore. I can quote the verse, but I just. I just. I felt dirty. And I didn't feel like I was worth anybody sticking with me now. I didn't look like that. I was an extrovert. I did pretty well in school. I was relatively popular, so I didn't look like a sad little wallflower. But behind that veneer, golly, I was scared. And for about six months, I just. This sounds dramatic. I could not physically get out of bed without saying out loud the name Jesus. I couldn't. And I'd never struggled. At least I wasn't honest enough to struggle with depression, but I'd never had anything. I couldn't and, you know, muscle through. And to be that weak. To be that weak and that not having Anything valuable I could bring to the world, but just a great big black hole of I'm sad, I'm lonely, I'm scared, and I'm weak. And instead of sensing God's disappointment, to sense his kindness and his nearness, and him essentially saying, I've been waiting for you. I've just wanted to hold you this whole time. And when I learned to be held by God, when I didn't have anything valuable to bring to the table, his table, or anybody else's, that's when I believed the gospel. That's when I was like, jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so. That's when that became the hub of my wheel. I could spout all that stuff before, and I was a Christian. I was just really bound. And I knew salvation. I didn't know freedom. I didn't know peace.
[38:02]
A
I love that you can just speak that about yourself in a way too, of speaking hope. Hope for maybe somebody that's listening, that feels like, I'll never be beyond where I am right now. And I think just hearing your story brings hope to them, that there is freedom. And that it might be a painful process of letting go, of living fearful, letting go, of living depressed.
[38:28]
C
You know, I appreciate it might be painful because we. Because people. It becomes an identity, be painful. And I'm like, that's not biblically defensible.
[38:36]
A
That's exactly right.
[38:37]
C
David said in his faithful, had I not gone to the basement, I would still be a liar and a faker. And so he used what I was afraid would kill me to actually set me free. And Job, you know, he shaves his head, tears his robes, and he worships. So he's not posing. He's not pretending like it's getting hurt. No. And I thought those were opposite ends of the continuum. I think that. I think sorrow, pain, the pain of our own life, the pain of being in a world that's broken by sin, where daddies leave their children and mamas leave the daddies, and there's rape and there's abuse and there's misogyny and there's racism. If that doesn't cause your heart to break, then you need an ekg. There is pain in a broken world, but pain and hope, real hope, because hope is saying it wasn't supposed to be like this. And I believe it won't always be like this, even in my own little story. But in the meta narrative, that's why he sent Jesus. There will come a day when the ways we hurt each other and the ways we've been hurt by others, that's going to be no more.
[39:54]
A
Pray for people.
[39:58]
C
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Thank you that you're so accessible. Thank you that you're so kind. Thank you that you're not a scowling savior, but you're perfectly loving, perfectly kind. That you're always beckoning us to move towards you, that we're never an interruption, we're never a bother to you. So, Lord, I pray for anybody who's done us just the, gosh, the kindness of listening to this whole conversation with my sister Shelly. I pray that what she always prays for the Grove, that God would use it to just help people take one step closer to you. I pray that same thing for the women and a few really brave men who are listening right now in their car or hotel room or at work or on the elliptical, that they will have enough faith to believe, to move even one step closer to you. And in that, to hear Holy Spirit saying, he sees you, he loves you, he sees you, he loves you. He sees you. He loves you. Lord Jesus, thank you for your accessible affection, your unconditional love. I pray that through just the community that we get to have through this podcast and through the Grove, that through each other, that would be the hermeneutic that reminds us that you love us, that we would learn through each other what it is to lean more fully into you. And we ask these things, Jesus, by the power of your name, Amen.
[41:39]
B
Jesus is not a distant God waiting for us to become more polished, more put together, or more worthy. He. He is a loving savior who meets us exactly where we are. What a gift to us all. To hear more from Lisa, you can find her on Instagramisadharper or visit her online at lisaharper.org and don't forget to stay connected with the Grove by following us on Instagram @pccthegrove. Make sure to subscribe and share this episode with someone who might need the reminder that they are deeply loved by Jesus. We'll meet you back here next time on the Grove Podcast.

Summary7 min read

The Grove Podcast: “The Greatest Love Story” with Lisa Harper Episode Date: July 29, 2026
Guest: Lisa Harper | Host: Shelley Giglio

Episode Overview

In this warm, openhearted episode, Grove favorite Lisa Harper joins Shelley Giglio for a deep conversation on what it truly means to know—rather than just know about—the God of the Bible. Lisa shares personal stories of fear, loss, and redemption, challenging the notion of Scripture as rulebook and inviting listeners to see the Bible as the ultimate love story. Through candid storytelling and insightful teaching, Lisa and Shelley demonstrate how God pursues, redeems, and loves deeply imperfect people, and how living in that truth brings freedom and transformation.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Authentic Friendship & Vulnerability (00:54–03:28)

Lisa and Shelley reminisce about time spent at the lake, highlighting their close friendship built on “going deep” and enjoying each other’s company in silence.
The importance of honest, real friendship is celebrated: “I love being with you... it’s a gift to have a friend like that.” (Shelley, 00:57)
Laughter, inside jokes, and a story about jumping in the lake with Lisa’s daughter, Missy, showcase the easy intimacy they share.

Moving Beyond “Consumer Christianity” (03:28–09:18)

Shelley explains Lisa’s mission: not just teaching Scripture, but helping people “think rightly about the Jesus of the Bible.”
Lisa shares how, after experiencing church disillusionment and personal pain, she realized that the truth about God had to be found in Scripture, not just in church tradition.
She describes Scripture as “not a rule book… at its core, is a love story” (Lisa, 06:07), recounting her own discovery of God’s deep affection for his people through the Song of Songs.
Lisa’s deepest passion is fostering encounters where “the story about how God loves me is on every page” (08:07).

Biblical Literacy and Living Theology (09:18–10:34)

Lisa laments how the Bible is often used as a club to wound rather than as a canopy of God’s love.
She emphasizes that theology simply means “conversation about God,” and is not arcane—it’s central to everyday life: “He’s not a proposition to study. He’s a person with whom to engage.” (09:59)

Embracing Imperfection in Faith (10:34–14:16)

Shelley and Lisa discuss the myth of needing to “clean up” before approaching God or being useful to Him.
“We’re made of dust, fallible in a thousand ways... and yet God chooses to use people like us.” (Shelley, 11:32)
Lisa reveals her journey from posing and striving to believing in the “liberty that comes with being loved by Jesus... There really is nothing I can do to make Him love me more, or make Him love me less.” (Lisa, 13:23)
Freedom and intimacy aren’t about perfect behavior but about “believing, oh my goodness, on my worst day” I am loved by God.

Learning from Scripture’s Familiar Stories (14:16–17:06)

Lisa reflects on the disciples’ repeated doubt during Jesus’ miraculous feedings, pushing home that even those closest to Jesus have to “relearn” trust.
“I’m at a place in life where I still have deep ends. I’m not afraid I’m going to drown anymore. He’s rescued me so many times.” (Lisa, 16:56)

Adoption, Grace, and Tangible Redemption (17:06–25:41)

Turning to Missy’s story, Lisa shares how becoming her “second mom” was both an answer to her own “orphan spirit” and an illustration of God’s redeeming love: “He sets the lonely in families by allowing you to become Missy's mom.” (20:08)
Lisa movingly credits Missy not as her hope but as “tangible grace,” a living metaphor for God’s power to redeem what feels irreparable.
She recounts losing two adoptions before Missy, confronting heartbreak, and the moment she realized Jesus—not motherhood—must be her anchor: “‘Am I enough for you?’ and I had to confess... ‘I don’t know.’ And He was just so present in the dark.” (25:41)

Embracing Singleness, Honesty, and Life’s Stories (25:41–31:44)

Shelley commends Lisa for her candor in writing and speaking about personal struggles, singleness, and the joy found without a husband: “There is nothing missing to me in my relationship with you given that you do not [have a husband].” (28:15)
Lisa acknowledges her own past relational brokenness and God’s ongoing grace, joking, “You always need an excuse for leather pants” when explaining buying a Harley instead of waiting for a husband. (27:09)
She appreciates not having to “curate” herself for acceptance, but instead lives honestly: “I’m not trying to curate my emotions anymore.” (31:44)
Lisa shares the freeing realization that regular, embodied living is part of spiritual life, not just church or Bible study.

When Loss Leads to Deep Freedom (32:00–38:02)

Loss, failure, and loneliness, rather than success, opened the door to true intimacy with God.
Lisa describes a season of needing Jesus just to get out of bed: “For about six months…I could not physically get out of bed without saying out loud the name Jesus.” (36:15)
In her brokenness, Lisa finally experienced grace not as theory, but as experienced love: “When I learned to be held by God when I didn’t have anything valuable to bring to the table...that’s when I believed the gospel.” (37:12)

The Redemptive Power of Pain and Hope (38:02–39:54)

Pain and hope are both real and not mutually exclusive: “He used what I was afraid would kill me to actually set me free.” (38:36)
Lisa highlights that sorrow over a broken world should drive us to real hope—anchored in the promise that “it won’t always be like this... that’s why He sent Jesus.” (39:44)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“This, at its core, is a love story…with one glance of your eyes, you captured my heart.” —Lisa (07:13)
“He’s not a proposition to study. He’s a person with whom to engage.” —Lisa (09:31)
“There really is nothing I can do to make Him love me more, to make Him love me less.” —Lisa (13:23)
“Loss, failure, and loneliness opened up freedom; it was the basement, not the headlines, that set me free.” —Lisa (32:00–38:36)
“I thought I was rejectable…how in the Sam Hill could a perfect God like that delight in a woman like me?” —Lisa (12:09)
“The regular stuff of life…is grace.” —Lisa (29:46)
“When I learned to be held by God when I didn't have anything valuable to bring to the table... that's when I believed the gospel.” —Lisa (37:12)

Key Timestamps

00:54 – Heartfelt friendship between Lisa and Shelley, setting the scene for authenticity.
04:59 – Lisa on the difference between knowing about God and knowing God through Scripture.
07:13 – Discovering the Bible as a love story, not a rule book.
09:18 – Challenges of biblical illiteracy and proper theology.
13:23 – Liberating truth: “nothing can make Him love me more or less.”
17:06 – How adopting Missy transformed Lisa’s understanding of God’s love.
25:41 – Losing adoptions, facing heartbreak, and learning Jesus is enough.
27:09 – Lisa’s “Harley instead of husband” and the beauty of singleness.
32:00 – The defining role of loss, failure, and loneliness in breaking free from posing.
36:15 – Lisa’s season of deep need: “could not get out of bed without saying Jesus’ name.”
39:44 – The enduring hope of the gospel through pain.

Tone & Style

The conversation is honest, disarmingly funny, yet deeply reverent. Lisa is self-deprecating and relatable, freely sharing her doubts and failures without bitterness. Shelley affirms and teases in turn, providing a safe space for real talk. The episode feels like a trusted conversation between close friends, inviting listeners into both laughter and tears, and always pointing back to Jesus as the source of hope, transformation, and love—a tone entirely in keeping with The Grove’s mission.

Final Blessing (39:57–41:38)

Lisa prays over listeners, invoking the name of Jesus and asking for His love to become real and tangible through even small steps of faith:
“I pray…for the women and a few really brave men…that they will have enough faith to believe, to move even one step closer to you…He sees you, He loves you.”

Summary

This episode showcases Lisa Harper’s remarkable ability to draw theological truth from everyday life and personal struggle, making real the relentless love story written in Scripture. Listeners are encouraged to move beyond “consumer Christianity,” to step into freedom, and to trust that God’s grace is sufficient—even, and especially, in life’s darkest “basements.” Through laughter, tears, and truth, Lisa and Shelley show that God’s love story isn’t just for the polished and put-together, but for anyone willing to believe that “He sees you. He loves you.”

For more: Follow Lisa on Instagram @lisadharper, or visit lisaharper.org. Stay connected with The Grove Podcast @pccthegrove.

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Transcript93 lines

[00:00]
A
Foreign.
[00:05]
B
Hey, girls, it's Cigna Coleman, and you are listening to episode five of our summer recap series here on the Grove Podcast. Today, our very own Grove girl, Lisa Harper, is joining Shelley Giglio to have an honest conversation about what it looks like to truly know the God of the Bible and not just know about him. Lisa shares how God has faithfully pursued her through so many seasons of fear, loss, and transformation, reminding us that the Bible is not just a rulebook. It is truly a love story. And the same God who wrote it is inviting each of us into deeper relationship with him. We know this conversation will encourage you, so let's join Shelley and Lisa.
[00:55]
A
We're on the Growth podcast together. Lisa Harper.
[00:57]
C
I look at you, and it's like my heart starts going, I love you so much. I feel the same way. I love being with you.
[01:03]
A
We love being together. And it's a gift to have a friend like that.
[01:06]
C
That's why I couldn't wear shorts, because everybody would see my Shelly tattoo.
[01:10]
A
Well, they would actually see your tan legs because you've been at the lake some this summer, so you're feeling pretty
[01:14]
C
good about that light together.
[01:15]
A
We had a little moment at the lake. Can we just talk about that?
[01:18]
C
Just to start off without the suicide pack? Yes.
[01:22]
A
Well, now, was the video approved that you took of me, the Holy Spirit?
[01:27]
C
The Holy Spirit was not. Well, here's the deal. You are, like, one of the godliest women I know. I think the world should see you in a modest, appropriate bathing suit.
[01:39]
A
I actually had some kind of wrap on.
[01:42]
C
You also had, like, 45 pounds of jewelry.
[01:44]
A
And, well, I wasn't really intentionally going
[01:48]
C
in the lake, but it was your compassion for Missy. It was when Missy.
[01:52]
A
So Missy said, do you want to swim with me?
[01:54]
C
I know you couldn't say no.
[01:56]
A
I totally do.
[01:57]
C
Oh, I love the way you love her.
[01:59]
A
She's precious.
[02:00]
C
What's cool to me is Missy doesn't know your passion Shelly. She doesn't know your Shelley Galea. She knows your Aunt Shelly. That's so sweet. And so she. She wouldn't think twice about asking you to jump in that janky lake with her.
[02:14]
A
I totally did and was happy to do it. Although being videoed was not approved.
[02:19]
C
And Slow Mo.
[02:20]
A
Oh, my gosh. Literally the worst sound I've ever heard is when I listened to the sound on that video.
[02:25]
C
It was.
[02:25]
A
It sounded like I was an underwater
[02:27]
C
creature being hit by a car. But you still looked amazing.
[02:32]
A
Well, thank you.
[02:33]
C
I was like, people need to see that you can study your Bible and look like that to be encouraged. It was fun. You know what my favorite part of being at the lake with you was? We can dive in so deep and then we can lie on the couch and read a magazine side by side, not to say anything. That's just the kind of friendship you want.
[02:52]
A
I do remember best, though, that the night I had gotten there, I had flown to Nashville early that morning and worked on a project. And then I had driven to your lake house, which isn't that far from there, but a little ways. And then we had had dinner together and had a really great night. And at 1:30 in the morning, your daughter came in to say, do you know what time it is? We were still chatting as though it were six in the afternoon.
[03:17]
C
And she was like, I think maybe
[03:19]
A
we should all go to bed.
[03:21]
C
I was like 14 year old.
[03:23]
A
We put her in charge of us.
[03:24]
C
It was lights out. That's how I feel with you, though. Every time. There's never enough time.
[03:29]
A
That's it. That's a g. I love you being on the Grove podcast. The Grove women love you, Lisa, and it is a special relationship. I think in over years you've been here with us, which has been amazing. But I think as people are listening to the podcast today, one of the things I really want to talk about, which I think people will be interested in, is how you feel like you're on a mission. And it's not just to teach the Bible to me, but I think you're also on a mission as you're teaching people the Bible, to teach them to think rightly about the Jesus of the Bible so that then they can relate to the God of the Bible in such a profound way themselves. And it might be one of the reasons we're as close to friends as we are, because I feel like we. And I don't want to get into the negative side of it necessarily, but I just feel like sometimes as believers, we do people such a disservice by basically making them believe that our study of the Bible is what's going to help you. Exactly. Instead of helping you understand that your relationship with God is contingent on you studying and knowing the Bible and more than the Bible, knowing the God of the Bible. And I feel like you cross that line so beautifully between I'm going to just teach you the Word, which you do an amazing job of, but I'm really going to teach it to you so that it encourages you to know and understand the Word. So talk about that, because it's. It's really Teaching theology is what you're doing there.
[05:00]
C
I can't remember that old adage, you should know as a part farm girl. What's the thing about giving somebody a fish or teaching them how to fish?
[05:09]
A
Well, it's basically like a livelihood is in the teaching how to do.
[05:13]
C
Yeah, you don't want people to be consumer Christ followers. And I grew up in a stream of the church, and I'm so grateful for it. That had a high regard for Scripture, but it was kind of disseminated once a week at church. And then you had Bible study and you filled in all your blanks. And then I went through a real season of just doubting a lot of stuff. I'd seen some moral failure in the church, and I was just so disappointed by that. And then I just. I saw some things that I didn't expect to see in church or from church people. And I decided I can't quite get away from God. I still believe in God, but I don't want to be around religion. And so I went through a period, and I'm not saying it was good rebellion, but there was some abuse in my background as a kid. And so I had used my. I don't have a great mind, but I have a very vigilant mind. Cause that's how I stayed out of trouble. If I could read a room, I could figure out who was gonna take me in the dark and hurt me. And so I applied some of that same. I'll just call it vigilance to what is true about God and what is tradition that has been told about God to me. And the only place I felt like I could really find the truth was in Scripture. And when God began to kind of jump off the pages of this, and I went, it's not a rule book. This is not. It's not a textbook. It's not a collection of benign morality tales. This, at its core, is a love story. Shelly. I remember being blown away in my 30s. I'd been in vocational ministry, you know, right out of undergrad. And somebody had given me their beach house for a weekend. You know, when you started out in ministry, where all. It was like ramen noodles and the gospel, baby. And I went to this beach house and it rained the entire time. And all I had with me. I don't know what possessed me to have a commentary on the Song of Songs, but I did. And maybe because I was single and thought I need little Daniel Seal in the Old Testament, but I had a commentary on the Song of Songs, and I had My Bible. And so there's nothing else to do. I was kind of in the middle of nowhere. I started studying the Song of Songs and found out later that in rabbinical tradition, they don't let gentlemen who are studying to be rabbis even read it until they're 35, because of the intimacy and the Song of Songs. But I remember as a woman who's grown up in church, I gave my heart to Jesus when I was five, all these years later going, oh, how come I'd never seen this? How come I always thought this only applied to intimacy and marriage? But the God of the universe is saying to me, with one glance of your eyes, you captured my heart. And so I won't say this well. Cause, you know, concise is not my gift. But I'd say my greatest passion, my greatest kind of purpose and passion at this age and stage of life is to help people move a little closer to Jesus and begin to believe that this is not dead text. This is a love story. So when people go, you know, I started reading my Bible because you seem so excited about it, or you told a story that made me feel some sort of. But you tied it back to scripture. I don't give two hoots if they remember what I taught, but I care very, very, very deeply that people go, oh, that's a love story. And the story about how God loves me is on every page. Because I think our culture is increasingly leaving biblical fidelity. We've got amazing podcasts, we've got amazing tools to study the Bible. We've got phenomenal commun. So we kind of like our Bible in bite sized pieces. And we get into a lot of trouble there. When we hear somebody say, well, the Bible says if we don't know it for ourselves, I'm like, well, actually, they took that verse wildly out of context. That's not what.
[09:18]
A
You know that if you knew more of the Bible.
[09:20]
C
If you knew a little more of the Bible. I think the fact that we're hemorrhaging people from Christian culture isn't so much about what the church is doing right or wrong. I think it's an issue of biblical illiteracy. I think because so many times this is used as a club instead of a love story. People pull out clobber text instead of the fact that if you look at every story hangs under this canopy of a good God. That's theology. You know, people hear the word theology and they think, oh, old man, black socks, dusty office, no theology. At its root, theos in the Greek refers to God Logos refers to conversation. Theology is having conversations about God. It's what you do every single day. It's what Grove. The Grove is doing. There will be women who come to the Grove, hopefully women who are listening to this, who go, yeah, I'm not so sure about this whole Christian thing, but the idea of a God who loves me, that's compelling. So theology is not an elite or an arcane subject. It's conversations about God. And he's not a proposition to study. He's a person with whom to engage.
[10:34]
A
You make it so appealing. And I think that's a lot of what people are drawn to in you. A, you're real, which thank you for not putting a posture on that. We then have to come through so that we can see. We just see you. We see you in it. We see the beauty, the highs, the lows, the flaws. It doesn't feel like it had to be all polished up. And I think church has done a disservice to people in years and years and generations of showing people that you need to clean yourself up. Then you can be a presentable person to talk about church or to represent God in some way. And I think the truth is that we're all human. We're made of dust, fallible in a thousand ways, make good choices and bad choices on a daily basis, not just once in life, but all the time. And so we're all just inches away from catastrophe, right? At our best, at our very best,
[11:31]
C
at our very best.
[11:32]
A
And yet God chooses to use people like us to bring his kingdom to people. And I don't understand it fully. I will never be able to speak on it because I can't fully grasp it, I don't think. But that that was his plan and that he can use us is awesome. But the fact that you can. We can show ourselves as human in the midst of it, so that it's not a perfect thing, that it's a work in progress. And I think that's what people love and appreciate about you, and it draws them to God, because if he can tolerate somebody like you. Lisa.
[12:04]
C
Exactly. Exactly. I mean, and that is so the truth, so true for all of us. So I can't even tell you how much I appreciate you choosing to see the part of me that is honest because I was a poser for a lot of years, because I thought I really, at the core of me, thought I was rejectable. I thought I wasn't worthy of staying with. I thought, how in the Sam Hill could a perfect God like that delight in a woman like me, much less allow me to say his name with a microphone attached to. And it took a long, long, long time to actually believe the liberty that comes with being loved by Jesus. I, at some basic level, got that I needed deliverance from my sins. But I thought I had to curate my emotions. And I thought I could only bring kind of the happy, clappy perky parts before the Lord or before God's people. So all the messy, the sad, the lonely, where I felt like an absolute failure. I spent a lot of my life scared to death somebody would look under the hood of my life and not like what they saw. So I presented what I hoped would be acceptable. So the fact that now at 60, you know, the cool thing isn't getting discounts at fast food restaurants, the cool thing is really beginning to believe what we've been preaching, that he's such a kind creator redeemer, that at my worst he decided before the beginning of time that he loved me. He already justified me. The plan of the gospel was not a knee jerk reaction. He knew eons before I was born, that I was his, that I was his beloved. So there really is nothing I can do to make him love me more, to make him love me less. And the freedom in that intimacy with Jesus isn't about good behavior. It's about believing, oh my goodness on my worst day. And you've seen some of them?
[14:17]
A
I've seen a few. You have more.
[14:18]
C
You know where a lot of the bodies are buried in my life. And because you're a good friend, you choose to see what is redeemed or redeemable. To know that God loves me infinitely more. And even in his discipline, he believes the best in me. I'm sure you've probably taught on this before. Louie's preached on it. But I saw this fresh the other day. I was reading on the two miraculous feedings. You've got the one in all the gospels where it says he fed the 5,000 with one little boy's chick fil a sandwich. But then there's a second feeding. And that time we're told that's only in two gospel accounts, there's two miraculous feedings. Second time we're told he fed 4,000, so it probably would have been about 12,000. And here's what struck me. And again, I'm sure, sure you've already seen this, but if I had seen it, I had forgotten it. You know, there's so many great things about scripture that you relearn.
[15:12]
A
You relearn, yes.
[15:13]
C
Or you relearn it better.
[15:15]
A
That's why you stay in it.
[15:16]
C
Yes, I love Dr. Craig Keener. I was just telling you one of my favorite living scholars. I love all the dead guys, too. But Dr. Keener is alive and well. He says if you get out of the Bible what you're expecting to get out of Bible, you need to raise your expectations.
[15:28]
A
That's it.
[15:28]
C
Always bigger, always better. But I saw, at least for the first time I can remember that the disciples response, they're living with Jesus. They're not just churching it once a week. They are with him shoulder to shoulder 24 7. And when he takes the fish and the loaves and there's 15,000 people on the hillside, they go, how? Like, how is this gonna work? I mean, we are gonna be. Everybody's gonna unfollow us because everybody's gonna go away hungry. They don't know how he can do that. Second time, they have seen that one. You went a little meal, you just divinely, exponentially multiplied. They've seen all the baskets left over they got to take to shelters. I mean, they've seen all this. Second time, their question is, how?
[16:18]
A
How?
[16:18]
C
And I just love that I'm like you yahoos. You're just like me. I've been walking with Jesus for 55 years. He's been nothing but faithful, nothing but perfectly compassionate and present, even in his discipline. When he spanks me, he holds me. He has been such a good God. And I still ask how? And instead of frying me into a grease spot of oblivion, he again calls me to himself and teaches me something again and again and again. And so I. I'm at a place in life where I still have deep ends. I'm not afraid I'm going to drown anymore. He's rescued me so many times that I can float with a lot more security than I used to.
[17:06]
A
That's so beautiful. Talk about Missy a little bit, because we've talked about her several times before and we'll probably talk about her the rest of our life and everything we
[17:15]
C
talk about every day for the rest of my life.
[17:17]
A
But she's taught us both a lot. I think you as our mother, just an intense amount of a. Maybe what God thinks about us in a better sense, based on what you think about when you think about her. And it makes me tear up because I know God would have known without Missy that we would have understood at some level, the best we could how he felt about us. But I know with her, it makes it a lot more tangible. You know, when I read Psalm 68, where it talks about that God puts the fatherless into families and how he. He just is always like you talk about him, with his kindness and in his kindness making a way and a place for us. And when I think about Missy being born in the absolute difficult situation she was born into, I could see so clearly because of you moving toward her, that his plan of rescue for her was you. But what it helps me see more than anything else, that his plan of rescue for me was Jesus and how he intentionally set that course before I was really even around. So before you knew you would adopt and before you knew that Rita spoke over you. You're gonna have a little girl. And before you knew all the pieces were gonna be in place for you to bring home, that God was looking at her with such compassion and with such purpose. And what does it do to you? Not just insides. And I don't want to make you cry again. But really, what is it? How has it helped you love God more than you ever loved him before?
[19:08]
C
It has been chill. You know, I have so many words, and I never can find the right words for how kind he's been through this. Getting to be Missy's second mom. I think of her first mom, Marie. She died when Missy was just two years old. And she didn't get to know Missy because she was so sick. She was really just eviscerated by AIDS before she gave birth to Missy. And in that society, she was hidden because of voodoo culture. They were so ashamed of her. And I can't imagine not being able to raise a child that I carried and loved so deeply. And so I think for Marie, who loved Jesus, I think about her all the time. I think about the day I get to meet her in glory. And I don't know how much of our memory and mind we'll have. I know it'll be perfect. I know the psalmist says, when we see Jesus face to face, it'll be enough. There'll be no more crying and no more dying. And I know there are some parables where those in heaven recognize those here on earth. So I'm just believing we'll know each other.
[20:19]
A
I hope so.
[20:21]
C
And I can't wait to say thank you. And can you believe what he's done with our girl Missy? My counselor, I go to Christian counseling on a pretty regular basis. That's a real means of grace in my life. And my counselor said, missy does not have an orphan spirit. You have had an orphan spirit. And so even though Missy was literally orphaned. You're the one who always felt fatherless. You're the one who never felt like you were enough. And she said you were the lonely, he said, in a family, by allowing you to become Missy's mom. So beautiful. And so she's not my hope. Jesus is my hope, but Missy is tangible grace, because I didn't deserve to be her second mom. And I'm not saying that in a woe is me kind of way. I just, at my age, had missed that window. I was so, so flipping scared of intimacy in my 20s and 30s in any way, romantically. I wasn't a good friend in my 20s and 30s because I shucked and jived and just showed you what I thought you wanted to know. So I was dishonest in that way. I wouldn't let people care for me. And so the fact that our God is so kind, that Psalm 84:11 says, no good thing will he withhold from those it says from those whose walk is upright. In some translations, I have my own little paraphrase. This is not sound. I want you to know this is my paraphrase, but my paraphrase is, no good thing will he withhold from her who often stumbles. Because, you know, I was raised in church, had a mama who knew Jesus. There was some abuse. My dad left, but. But I had some good stuff, and I was scared. Missy had almost nothing but pain and loss and starvation and sickness. And my kid believes the best. And so I see the gospel when I see how God allowed me, refined me to the point that I could actually be a relatively healthy mom and then gave me this kid who needed a parent. It's just, you know, it's a. For me, it is a very palpable metaphor for how God redeems what we think is irreparable.
[22:48]
A
Yeah, I love the part where you were just honestly saying that, you know, that you were the one who needed a family. And I see that work itself out with you and Missy every day. I see your life comes from your relationship so much with her, and it's like you had a life. You had a very full, active, amazing life. It wasn't like you were really even missing anything. But then when I see you with her, it's like nothing existed before her. It just feels. And I see that with a lot of moms, you know, who, maybe some who didn't even think they would be a mom, but then to see their mom heart come to life when they are, it's been beautiful to watch.
[23:35]
C
Filled a huge hole that I didn't really know was there. And oftentimes I wouldn't go there because it was sad or I was scared about it. Levi Lusko and I were talking about this recently. I lost two adoptions prior to Missy. And then I almost didn't get to bring Missy home. And when they told me I probably wasn't gonna get to bring her home, I was supposed to bring her home one October, and I'd already decorated the house for Christmas, and I had put stockings on. The man given me stockings that were embroidered Missy and Mama. And I remember like it was yesterday packing those stockings because they told me I wouldn't ever get to bring her home. And I thought, I'll just move to Haiti. I'm her only advocate. Even if I don't get to legally be your mom, I will move to Haiti. I was in menopause then. I was always hot anyway, so I thought, I'll move to Haiti. But I remember putting that stocking in a box under the stairs in a closet and thinking, I don't know, that I can ever really celebrate again, because I feel like my heart's been ripped out of my chest. But what he taught me in a way that I could, I think at least hold onto it tighter than I've been able to before, is that he is enough for me. Missy has fulfilled a dream and a hole in my heart and all these other things. But he taught me more through Missy that she's not enough for me, that he's my hope, he's my anchor, he's my joy, he's my peace. And it was in the dark that I didn't get Missy. When I think I finally went, I was afraid God wasn't enough for me. And I thought, if I don't get to have somebody with skin on who doesn't leave, husband, kid, whatever it is, I just don't think I'm ever going to be able to hang on to joy and peace. And it was actually in losing two adoptions and thinking I wasn't gonna get Missy that I sensed God say so kindly, not callously, so kindly, am I enough for you? And I had to confess.
[25:42]
A
I don't know.
[25:43]
C
I don't know. And he was just so present in the dark that. That I think I'm more grateful for those dark nights than I am for the Christmases that now have five or six messy stockings. I'm sure you do around the house now. But I'm so grateful for the dark, because fear doesn't own me anymore.
[26:07]
A
I'VE been reading your book and I don't always talk about everyone's books. In fact, we don't usually have people on the podcast. We just, I don't know, it would be easy just to talk about people's books because obviously when you write a book, you care deeply about the content, contents of it. And it's important for me to elevate what's important to you, but I just don't always bring it up. But this particular one captured my attention because its title is Jesus. I mean, if you're going to write a book, let's just go ahead and title who we're talking about. But then you devotionally do your Lisa Harperisms all through this book. And the way you take stories and help people understand Jesus heart is so beautiful to me. And like in one of them, it's toward the back of the book you write about turning a certain age. I won't say what it was, but in saying if I don't have a husband by that age, I'm getting a Harley. Right?
[27:10]
C
Because and I did. I literally am like Lisa, half Baptist. You always need an excuse for leather pants.
[27:18]
A
I'm literally like, if I don't get a hug by the time I'm 40, I do believe it was 40, that I'm definitely getting a Harley.
[27:24]
C
Absolutely.
[27:24]
A
And you did get a Harley. And then you turn this into this conversation about Peter and the way he denied Jesus and yet Jesus took him back and made him the center of the heart of the church of the future. And I am just like, how did you tell a story about you getting a Harley instead of a husband and turn it into that? But you are a master at taking the simple things of life and the decisions that we've all made in life and things that have marked our lives. And certainly not having a husband has marked your life.
[27:57]
C
Absolutely.
[27:58]
A
You know, it's, it's different. It's different than a lot of people's lives. But singleness has also defined you in such a beautiful way. I think the way that God has redeemed singleness in your life is one of the most stunning things I've ever seen as a friend. I love single Lisa Harper. I love her. And if you had a husband, I would love him too. But there is nothing missing to me in my relationship with you given that you do not. And I think even your willingness to be open handed enough to take a story, that is painful. I wish the choices were different. I wish in some ways they had ended differently or been different, but they Weren't. But to use those very things as something that are teachable ways to push people toward Jesus.
[28:42]
C
I wish I had been less toxic when I was younger, relationally. I wish I had been able to lean and into romantic intimacy. I mean, there's a lot of things I would do differently, but I think we all would. Absolutely. We're yahoos. It's three steps forward, two steps back. But the thing I was reading this thing yesterday that said the body of Christ isn't a metaphor. And how he chose to send our Redeemer embodied, incarnate Jesus. And he chose to make us as Imago dei, his image. We embodied. And I think so often in Christian culture, we almost try to be ethereal beings. And the regular stuff of life. I'm sad. I'm not getting husbands. I'm gonna get a Harley Davidson. I need to get my endorphins out some way. You know, the I'm sad here or I get with Shelly and I belly laugh so we can eat more carbs. Cause I will work on my abs, belly. Just the regular things of life. Friedrich Buechner is another one of my favorite recent passed away Bible scholars. And he says, this life itself is grace. It's not just Sundays. It's not just Bible studies. We carry the Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. So when I'm with you 96%, I think of the biblical imperatives when God tells us to do something are set in the context of community. It's not holier when I'm with you at the Grove than it is when you and Missy and I are giggling at our redneck little lake happy place. It's different. We have a different pursuit. But it is worship when we're just occupying space because we carry Holy Spirit, we are embodied creatures. And I used to dismiss especially my frailties because I thought, oh, goodness gracious, this is gonna hurt God's reputation. And the part of me now that goes, I had a woman come up to me. This is a couple years ago, but it was. This is. So this could be my tombstone. I was standing outside a door church. I won't let it, though. She came flying up to me and she went, I am so glad you're teaching Bible study now. Because before you, it was all these skinny blonde girls. And I was like, are you saying I'm a chunky brunette? What she was saying was, you don't look perfect. You don't look like you have it all together. And I thought, you know, I take that as a huge compliment because I used to think I had to have it all together. And I'm not saying sin is no big deal. I'm not trying to act like holiness isn't. I want. I want to have a Christophormic life. I want to be shaped like Jesus. I want to be kinder. But I just am. I'm not trying to curate my emotions anymore.
[31:43]
A
I'm trying to get.
[31:44]
C
Lord, let me.
[31:45]
A
That's a powerful phrase, isn't it? I think you talked about that earlier and you said I was in touch with a lot, but I wasn't in touch with the fact that I didn't have to curate my emotions. And what do you think opened up that clarity for you?
[32:00]
C
Failure. Yeah, failure, loss and loneliness.
[32:04]
A
Talk about that. Because I feel like so many people are stuck. They feel like they're still presenting themselves instead of really experiencing the kind of freedom that's been offered. And we talked about it today. We had a little tech stream going with Grove girls. And, you know, somebody was mentioning how powerful it is, what Jesus has done for us and how freeing it is if we truly received the gift. And my response was, my favorite part of the Bible is the word done. It is finished, it is over. I don't have to earn or do or present or clean up or, you know, pretend anything.
[32:49]
C
Right.
[32:49]
A
I already have received.
[32:51]
C
That's right.
[32:52]
A
What was perfectly done for me. But you say loss defined a lot of that for you.
[32:57]
C
Talk about that process done in the context of the gospel implies need. We need something done for us. It's one thing to talk about the gospel, the grace of the gospel, Jesus died for us, but to actually own the fact that we couldn't save ourselves. Because I think we exegete grace, but we live like we're still trying to do better, be better, so that he won't have had to expend too much energy saving us. And so I raised in church on my mom's side, soon out of undergrad, went into vocational ministry, youth ministry, worked for a large ministry out in Colorado, where I had to wear open toed shoes, by the way, because I was told the line between my big toe and second toe is reminiscent of cleavage. And even then I wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. But I thought, you know, if some man is stumbling because of my sandals, he's got bigger issues.
[33:52]
A
I don't know.
[33:53]
C
So I don't believe I've done really great with religion, but I've been in ministry. And this was 15 years ago, Shel. So I was 45 years old, I'd already gone to seminary. First go around, memorized just enough Greek and Hebrew to be dangerous, and I hit a wall. In my life, I'd always been really good at pretending. And I'd always been really good at curating my emotions and doing what I thought everybody wanted or needed. And I was horrible at needing, even with God. I was really good at being a dutiful Christian, being intimate. That just wasn't my strong suit. I was always afraid of abandonment. And I lost two primary relationships, and I wasn't sure I could live without the loss of one of them. And I was diagnosed with cancer that initially presented pretty serious, ended up not being a big deal. But all that happened in the same week. And I remember thinking, I can't carry the weight of my own life anymore. I just didn't have the energy to fake it anymore. And God said. I've never heard God's audible voice, but this was so loud. It may have been audible, and I just don't know it. It was so clear and so loud. I remember exactly where I was. I lived in this little cottage in Leapers, right next to Franklin, and by myself. And I heard God say so loudly in my spirit, lisa, you've been running scared your whole life. And so I'm going to take you to the basement and I'm going to sit there with you in the dark until fear doesn't own you anymore. And I was scared to death of being needy. I was scared of the dark. I was scared of failure. I was scared of anybody really seeing what was behind the curtain in my life. I thought I was rejectable and dirty and damaged some of the scars from sexual molestation. I knew better. I could tell you in a cross stick of why I didn't have to wear shame anymore. I can quote the verse, but I just. I just. I felt dirty. And I didn't feel like I was worth anybody sticking with me now. I didn't look like that. I was an extrovert. I did pretty well in school. I was relatively popular, so I didn't look like a sad little wallflower. But behind that veneer, golly, I was scared. And for about six months, I just. This sounds dramatic. I could not physically get out of bed without saying out loud the name Jesus. I couldn't. And I'd never struggled. At least I wasn't honest enough to struggle with depression, but I'd never had anything. I couldn't and, you know, muscle through. And to be that weak. To be that weak and that not having Anything valuable I could bring to the world, but just a great big black hole of I'm sad, I'm lonely, I'm scared, and I'm weak. And instead of sensing God's disappointment, to sense his kindness and his nearness, and him essentially saying, I've been waiting for you. I've just wanted to hold you this whole time. And when I learned to be held by God, when I didn't have anything valuable to bring to the table, his table, or anybody else's, that's when I believed the gospel. That's when I was like, jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so. That's when that became the hub of my wheel. I could spout all that stuff before, and I was a Christian. I was just really bound. And I knew salvation. I didn't know freedom. I didn't know peace.
[38:02]
A
I love that you can just speak that about yourself in a way too, of speaking hope. Hope for maybe somebody that's listening, that feels like, I'll never be beyond where I am right now. And I think just hearing your story brings hope to them, that there is freedom. And that it might be a painful process of letting go, of living fearful, letting go, of living depressed.
[38:28]
C
You know, I appreciate it might be painful because we. Because people. It becomes an identity, be painful. And I'm like, that's not biblically defensible.
[38:36]
A
That's exactly right.
[38:37]
C
David said in his faithful, had I not gone to the basement, I would still be a liar and a faker. And so he used what I was afraid would kill me to actually set me free. And Job, you know, he shaves his head, tears his robes, and he worships. So he's not posing. He's not pretending like it's getting hurt. No. And I thought those were opposite ends of the continuum. I think that. I think sorrow, pain, the pain of our own life, the pain of being in a world that's broken by sin, where daddies leave their children and mamas leave the daddies, and there's rape and there's abuse and there's misogyny and there's racism. If that doesn't cause your heart to break, then you need an ekg. There is pain in a broken world, but pain and hope, real hope, because hope is saying it wasn't supposed to be like this. And I believe it won't always be like this, even in my own little story. But in the meta narrative, that's why he sent Jesus. There will come a day when the ways we hurt each other and the ways we've been hurt by others, that's going to be no more.
[39:54]
A
Pray for people.
[39:58]
C
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Thank you that you're so accessible. Thank you that you're so kind. Thank you that you're not a scowling savior, but you're perfectly loving, perfectly kind. That you're always beckoning us to move towards you, that we're never an interruption, we're never a bother to you. So, Lord, I pray for anybody who's done us just the, gosh, the kindness of listening to this whole conversation with my sister Shelly. I pray that what she always prays for the Grove, that God would use it to just help people take one step closer to you. I pray that same thing for the women and a few really brave men who are listening right now in their car or hotel room or at work or on the elliptical, that they will have enough faith to believe, to move even one step closer to you. And in that, to hear Holy Spirit saying, he sees you, he loves you, he sees you, he loves you. He sees you. He loves you. Lord Jesus, thank you for your accessible affection, your unconditional love. I pray that through just the community that we get to have through this podcast and through the Grove, that through each other, that would be the hermeneutic that reminds us that you love us, that we would learn through each other what it is to lean more fully into you. And we ask these things, Jesus, by the power of your name, Amen.
[41:39]
B
Jesus is not a distant God waiting for us to become more polished, more put together, or more worthy. He. He is a loving savior who meets us exactly where we are. What a gift to us all. To hear more from Lisa, you can find her on Instagramisadharper or visit her online at lisaharper.org and don't forget to stay connected with the Grove by following us on Instagram @pccthegrove. Make sure to subscribe and share this episode with someone who might need the reminder that they are deeply loved by Jesus. We'll meet you back here next time on the Grove Podcast.

The Greatest Love Story :: Lisa Harper

The Greatest Love Story :: Lisa Harper

Episode Overview

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Authentic Friendship & Vulnerability (00:54–03:28)

Moving Beyond “Consumer Christianity” (03:28–09:18)

Biblical Literacy and Living Theology (09:18–10:34)

Embracing Imperfection in Faith (10:34–14:16)

Learning from Scripture’s Familiar Stories (14:16–17:06)

Adoption, Grace, and Tangible Redemption (17:06–25:41)

Embracing Singleness, Honesty, and Life’s Stories (25:41–31:44)

When Loss Leads to Deep Freedom (32:00–38:02)

The Redemptive Power of Pain and Hope (38:02–39:54)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Key Timestamps

Tone & Style

Final Blessing (39:57–41:38)

Summary

Episode Overview

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Authentic Friendship & Vulnerability (00:54–03:28)

Moving Beyond “Consumer Christianity” (03:28–09:18)

Biblical Literacy and Living Theology (09:18–10:34)

Embracing Imperfection in Faith (10:34–14:16)

Learning from Scripture’s Familiar Stories (14:16–17:06)

Adoption, Grace, and Tangible Redemption (17:06–25:41)

Embracing Singleness, Honesty, and Life’s Stories (25:41–31:44)

When Loss Leads to Deep Freedom (32:00–38:02)

The Redemptive Power of Pain and Hope (38:02–39:54)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Key Timestamps

Tone & Style

Final Blessing (39:57–41:38)

Summary