Saying “Yes, Lord” to the Future
Dannah Gresh: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth believes spiritual growth is organic. It happens at a grassroots level.
Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Life on life. This is a biblical model. I can’t disciple a woman who lives in Dubuque or Albany or Savannah or Mexico City, but women in her church can.
Dannah: You’re listening to the Revive Our Hearts podcast with the birthday girl!--Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Adorned: Living Out the Beauty of the Gospel Together—for September 3, 2021. I’m Dannah Gresh.
Nancy, today we do want to hear some of your vision for the future of Revive Our Hearts, but first. . .It’s your birthday!. . .and it’s Revive Our Hearts’ birthday! So I think we should take a moment and celebrate!
Nancy: Yes, Dannah, this is a sweet day, and I’m so thankful to be able to celebrate sixty-three years of life and twenty years of Revive Our …
Dannah Gresh: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth believes spiritual growth is organic. It happens at a grassroots level.
Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Life on life. This is a biblical model. I can’t disciple a woman who lives in Dubuque or Albany or Savannah or Mexico City, but women in her church can.
Dannah: You’re listening to the Revive Our Hearts podcast with the birthday girl!--Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Adorned: Living Out the Beauty of the Gospel Together—for September 3, 2021. I’m Dannah Gresh.
Nancy, today we do want to hear some of your vision for the future of Revive Our Hearts, but first. . .It’s your birthday!. . .and it’s Revive Our Hearts’ birthday! So I think we should take a moment and celebrate!
Nancy: Yes, Dannah, this is a sweet day, and I’m so thankful to be able to celebrate sixty-three years of life and twenty years of Revive Our Hearts! The broadcast launched for the first time on September 3, 2001, so each year I have the sweet opportunity to be reminded of what God has done and to anticipate what He has for us in the future.
Dannah: Well, with your permission, I think we’ll probably be celebrating all month long, because twenty years for Revive Our Hearts is a pretty beautiful milestone!
Nancy: It is, Dannah, and I couldn’t be more grateful to have seen this “child” (shall we call it?) growing up and to see the impact that God is using it to make in the lives of women all around the world!
Dannah: It is truly all around the world! In fact, to help us celebrate, Danielle called. From about one-third of the way around the world; she is in Uganda!
Danielle: I want to wish you a very happy birthday, Nancy! You have influenced my life and ministry more than any other woman on earth. Nearly twenty years ago you taught me how to replace lies with the truth. You helped me realize that I was believing the lie that I can't control my emotions. And my family is especially thankful to you for exposing that one!
God has given me all the grace I need to walk in the Spirit, and over the past fifteen years I've been passing on your ministry of Revive Our Hearts to the women here in Uganda.
Dannah: Danielle says the women she works with are well familiar with what she calls her “Nancy-isms,” such as:
Danielle: “Anything that makes me need Christ more is a blessing,” or “Choosing to not forgive is like drinking poison and expecting it to kill the other person,” or “Replace fear with faith,” or “Learn to control your emotions. Don't let your emotions control you,” or “You can trust God to write your story,” or “Submission is a beautiful gift designed for our blessing and our benefit.”
Nancy, you have helped confirm the value of my role as a true woman. You’ve inspired me to be content to invest in my children and to become a spiritual mother to as many daughters as possible.
I am so thankful that you and Revive Our Hearts walk alongside me as I pour into other women. Nancy, thank you for all the sacrifices you've made through the years to produce Revive Our Hearts.
Nancy: Wow! Thank you so much, Danielle! What an incredible encouragement it is to hear how God has used this message in your life, and how God is using you to multiply this message in the lives of other women around you!
Dannah, twenty years ago I could not have possibly imagined how God would be using Revive Our Hearts on this kind of international scale. I am so aware that there is no way we can take credit for this. It’s only because of the faithfulness of God and the power of His transforming Word at work in the lives of others. I could not be more grateful!
Dannah: Well, Nancy, it’s been such a joy to have a front-row seat to see God working in women all over the world! He certainly has used your books and this wonderful program!
This week we’ve been listening to a conversation between you and our friend Bob Lepine. Together you’ve been reflecting on some of the many ways we’ve seen God’s blessing on Revive Our Hearts over the past two decades.
Nancy: It’s amazing, amazing! And Bob is familiar to many of our listeners because of his almost three decades serving as cohost of FamilyLife Today. From the very first days of Revive Our Hearts, in fact, even before there was a Revive Our Hearts, Bob has been a true friend, a coach.
I call him kind of the midwife who helped give birth to Revive Our Hearts. He’s been a precious encourager to me and to the whole ministry of ROH!
Dannah: Yesterday, you and Bob talked about the very first True Woman Conference, True Woman ’08. And there were seeds planted then and there that have produced ongoing, international fruit in the years since. Here’s Bob Lepine with more.
Bob Lepine: You mentioned a hundred women from the Dominican Republic. I know as that event came, you kind of looked at these registrations that were coming from the Dominican Republic going, “Who are they?”
Nancy: Well, they showed up a day early because they wanted to help us stuff tote bags! These Dominicans had a lot of energy. They had traveled a long time, but you could not get them so tired out that they would stop! They were so thrilled to be there!
And from that point they began pestering us . . . like that woman in Luke, the widow who went before this judge and kept knocking on the door, knocking on the door and saying, “I need help! I need you; I need you!” (see Luke 18:1–5) These women kept saying, “We need this in Spanish; we need this in Latin America!”
What we didn’t know was that God had been using some of our resources—including the Seeking Him book and I think maybe the True Woman book, some of our resources that they had translated into Spanish. They were sharing them there in the Dominican Republic, and God was sending revival to the hearts of Dominican women . . .and their husbands, their families, their churches. We didn’t know all this was going on.
That set the course for what became more than a partnership; they became part of our family! Now, what is happening through Aviva Nuestros Corazones--the Spanish language division outreach of Revive Our Hearts—this past year there were more website visits to our Spanish websites than there were to our English ones!
I remember when we first started getting around these Dominican women, and I saw the passion, and we visited there and we worked with them to see if they were really on the same page with us and had the shared DNA and the love for Scripture. Those boxes all checked off.
I remember coming back from that first trip to the D.R. and saying to our team, “The day will come, I believe, when what is happening in Latin America through the Spanish ministry will eclipse what is happening through this ministry here in the United States.”
Because here in the United States we have a lot of options. There are a lot of gifted and good Bible teachers for women, a lot of resources. In Latin America, this was stepping into a vacuum where there was not much available in Spanish for women that was solidly biblical.
And so, that vacuum just . . .whoosh! They have taken it. They’ve produced a devotional Bible in Spanish with their own authors contributing the devotionals to that. They’re a fabulous team! And now, what we’ve seen happen in Spanish and in Latin America, we are seeing early stages of similar things happening in multiple other languages around the world, as people are so hungry!
Women are raising their hands, “Can we have this, can we have this? We want this!” They’re translating these resources. They’re starting their own podcasts, and we’re doing what we can to encourage them, to resource them, to pray for them, to lift up their hands.
We don’t speak Farsi or Italian or Afrikaans, and in these languages they’re taking the ball and they’re running with it.
Dannah: In fact, we’ve compiled audio from Revive Our Hearts in other languages. This is what Nancy sounds like in Tsonga, spoken in southern Africa And you probably recognize Spanish . . . and its close cousin, Portuguese.
Here’s Revive Our Hearts in Italian; and the language of the Persians, Farsi. And of course, French. (audio clips were included in all these languages)
What a blessing to have an international outreach! Nancy points out, it’s not something we’ve intentionally set out to do, but as others are reaching out to us . . .
Nancy: They’re saying, “This is the message we need, calling women to revival, biblical womanhood, to be women of the Word, women who exhibit in our world the heart and Spirit of Jesus, and who are passing a baton of faith to the next generation.
And what a joy it is to see! We step back and say, “Twenty years seems like a long time!” But in another way, it seems like such a short time, because it’s God who’s doing the multiplying. We’re sowing, we’re watering the Word that’s been planted, but it’s God who gives the increase, God who gives the harvest!
You know, we sat in a board meeting—Bob, you remember this—maybe two or three years into Revive Our Hearts. I remember the board asking me to come prepared to share with you what I could envision happening down the road through this ministry.
We wanted to make sure we were setting the sails and marking the course, and the board wanted to review this and give counsel and speak into it. I remember preparing this maybe twenty- or thirty-minute little presentation.
I think there were some slides. (I don’t even know if we had PowerPoint back then! But I think we were past overhead projectors, but it was the early days!) I had sought the Lord and listened and talked to some of our staff. I came not with a polished presentation but just saying, these are the things that are on my heart.
We’ve saved that presentation, those notes. We’ve gone back to it many times over the years. We’ve refined it; we’ve developed it. There are ways of ministry today that didn’t exist in those days.
But it’s interesting to see how the things that God put in our hearts back then, that we could only envision by faith, God is doing today! And so we stand back and we say, “Lord, the work is Yours. We don’t own this; we’re not controlling it. It’s Your work . . . for You to provide.”
You know, He provided financially in those early days. Still every month, one month at a time, one year at a time. We’re trusting God for now much bigger amounts of resources, funds and staff, ideas and opportunities. The opportunities are greater, exponentially, than we ever could have imagined! The demand is greater than we ever could have imagined.
And God keeps bringing people with like-minded hearts. Some of our listeners have heard Dannah Gresh and Erin Davis and Leslie Bennett and the True Woman speakers. And then there are many behind the scenes who serve in amazing ways to make this all possible!
And we say, “Lord, what do You have ahead for this?” We’re having those kinds of conversations. We don’t know, but we’re trying to set our sails to be available, to be His servants, and to say, “We’re here for whatever You have.”
One of the things we’re very eager for, and we’re doing everything we can to encourage, is passing the baton to younger women who love the Lord, love His Word, have been impacted by this message, are committed to living out biblical priorities for their lives, and they’ve demonstrated God’s anointing.
His hand is on their lives. They’ve demonstrated gifts for ministering in various ways. And we’re providing opportunities for them to develop those gifts, to be mentored, to be coached, to have opportunities to serve.
You’ll hear some of those people on our weekly Grounded videocast. You hear some of them as guests on Revive Our Hearts. They are blogging and writing articles that are appearing on our various websites.
And what we’re doing in English, the Spanish leadership team is doing there. They’re developing some really gifted young women who are writing. They’re not just translating our material to Spanish—they’re doing that—but they’re also producing a lot of original material in Spanish. I think this year they’ll produce sixty programs for their podcast.
To know that they’re solid, they’re women of the Word, they’re faithful to the Word . . . wow! I sometimes say if the Lord took me home today, I would die a happy woman—fulfilled, joyful, thankful, faith-filled—because we’ve seen God do so much!
It’s not ever been a ministry that was limited to me, to what I could contribute, to what I could bring to it. I’ve worked hard, I’ve poured myself into it and “slept on the floor” as they say. But it’s never centered on me. It’s always been centered on Christ and on His Word.
I know that when the day comes, whenever that is that the Lord takes me home—maybe Revive Our Hearts’ thirtieth anniversary or fortieth anniversary, I’ve no idea where I’ll be, if at all, other than heaven, but it doesn’t depend on me. It never has, it never will.
My hope is that, as I’ve leaned hard into Christ and into His Word, that the women who are coming behind are going to do the same. Some of those women are going to do it way better than I ever dreamed of doing.
They’re going to be standing on my shoulders. As long as I’m here, when it’s my time to be on the sidelines, I’m going to be cheering for them. In the meantime (this is not a retirement announcement!), I’m committed to still working and serving and being available for whatever God has.
Bob: There are a lot of projects still in the short term that you’re investing in. We’ve been talking about some of those. We see brush fires happening around the world as people are connecting with this ministry. In our own country we can sometimes look at the horizon and go, “Are there still ears to hear?”
Yet from the beginning, you’ve described Revive Our Hearts as a “remnant ministry.” Explain what you mean by that, and do you think that’s more true today than it was twenty years ago?
Nancy: These are hard days for sure! So much about our message is counter-cultural, even within the church, sad to say. There are a lot today who really aren’t focusing on or believing God for a movement of revival. There are many who reject it or have cut corners with a biblical teaching on gender, on sexuality, on women and their calling within the church.
To stick to God’s Word in those areas makes you something of a dinosaur. You can get cancelled really easily today! And even some of the platforms that we’re depending on to house different parts of our ministry, we don’t know how long we’ll have those.
Bob: We don’t know if your books will still be available online from different booksellers.
Nancy: Exactly! But we’re going to be faithful to the Word. It’s always been the case in God’s kingdom. Jesus talks about this in the gospels, the apostles talk about it. God doesn’t choose and use the biggest and the brightest and the most flashy and the most spectacular. God takes small, unseen, simple things that are considered foolish by the world.
Jesus talked about how a mustard seed is tiny, it’s inconsequential. You would never think, Oh, something great is going to come out of this! But it’s sown; it’s planted; it’s watered, and it’s fertilized. And in time—in God’s time and in God’s way—it grows up into a great magnificent tree that houses birds of the air and provides beauty and shade.
You know, the outcome is God’s to determine. One of the things I dealt with early on was just saying, “My goal for this is not to be famous—it’s certainly not to be rich!—but it’s also not to have more ‘likes.’”
In the early days, Christian radio went through a bit of some turmoil where they were doing less Bible teaching and more music. We went through some of that, lost some of our stations. They’re accountable to God for what they do, but one of the things I said was, “I want to be faithful to the truth.”
If we don’t have a ministry left, I want to be faithful to the truth. I’m not going to do this for human applause or for book sales or for getting the highest rankings or the most listeners. That’s never been our objective! We want people to hear the message. We want to get it out there, but we don’t measure success by how many receive it. We measure success by how faithful we are in delivering the message, and then we trust God with the outcome.
I will say, however, that even though these are hard days and there are many—even within the church—who seem to be much more marching to the drum of the world and its philosophies and its ways of thinking—the path of those who love truth and are willing to sacrifice for it, it’s not a huge band of people. I’m not saying that with any arrogance. I’m just saying, Jesus said it would be that way.
But, thank God!, there are those who do have ears to hear. We have one of our most flourishing and growing outreaches today that is an outreach to women’s ministry leaders in local churches. Leslie Bennett, who heads that up. She loves the Lord; she loves His Word; she loves prayer; she loves revival; she has served in the context of a local church.
She’s now leading and resourcing those women’s ministry leaders. I’ve been listening to a recent webinar series they’ve been having. You know, there are not millions of those women, but there is a growing number who say, “I want to be faithful in the context of my local church to be discipling the women God has put for me to care for, and to do it faithfully.”
That doesn’t get written up. People don’t write big articles, or you don’t have a press release about a woman who is doing that faithfully in a smallish local church . . . or even a big local church. So, what’s the big deal? But that is a big deal, because those are the women who are doing the Titus 2 work.
Paul said to Titus in the context of the Roman empire where the church was being persecuted and there were false teachers and people were walking away from Christ. What’s Paul plan? What did he say to Titus in this little embryonic church started there on the island of Crete?
He says, “Tell the older women to teach the younger women how to love their husbands, to love their children, to be pure, to be kind.” (see Titus 2:3–5) You say, “What kind of plan is that!? That doesn’t seem impressive!” But it’s God’s plan, that’s a “mustard seed,” and so there are women doing that.
Bob: I think back to the early days when we imagined what God might do. And twenty years later, I think we would all look and say, “As He promised, He has done exceedingly abundantly beyond what we imagined back then.”
So, to try to think what God might be going to do in the next ten or twenty years, that’s not wrong to do, but we just need to recognize, God has mapped out where He is going. If you were to get to the thirtieth anniversary of Revive Our Hearts and look back on the last ten years . . . now it’s 2031 (It’s hard to even say those words!), what would you hope to see in the next ten years?
Is it the international expansion of Revive Our Hearts that God has put on your heart the most passionately? Is it specific areas of ministry? What’s the biggest burden on your heart?
Nancy: Yes, I don’t know that I could limit it to one. The international certainly would be a big one. That really taps into a sense I had as a teenage girl, where I felt like God put in my heart a burden for the nations. And interestingly, my cohost Dannah Gresh had a similar perspective and experience when she was a teenage girl.
We didn’t know this—we didn’t know each other then—but both of us felt such a strong drawing from the Lord for the nations, and for the Word of God to go through the nations, and somehow to be a part of a work that God would do in the nations. That’s not something you aspire to or you go to a whiteboard and say, “How can I make this happen?” There’s been none of that.
But it’s beautiful to see that God is doing that. And the nations are now reachable in a way that they weren’t before the advent of the Internet. There is outreach and effective fruitful ministry taking place even in parts of the world that are closed countries, what God is doing in the hearts of women in Iran and China.
I don’t want to sound like we’re the only ones having any impact there, because that’s not true at all. But God is giving us opportunities to share the beauty and the riches of the gospel of Christ, and to encourage women who want to be faithful women of God in so many parts of the world.
So, I’m eager to see that continue. I can envision that global outreach becoming more robust, more fruitful. And again, we’re not just saying, “Okay, we want to be big.” It’s, “Lord, You’re worth every language and tribe and tongue and nation being able to know Jesus and worship Him. You are worthy of this!” And so, we see God doing that, and I believe we will see Him do much more of that.
We also see God expanding the outreach of our Ambassadors, and our women’s ministry leader outreaches, and this to me is really important—in the United States, throughout Latin America, and in other parts of the world as well. This is more the grassroots.
This isn’t people just listening to and reading my books and hearing my broadcasts. These are women in the context of the local church being equipped and trained and developed to serve the Lord in their context.
Bob: Life on life.
Nancy: Life on life. This is a biblical model. I can’t disciple a woman who lives in Dubuque or Albany or Savannah or Mexico City, but women in her church can. So we want to be resourcing and equipping and mobilizing this army of women to be a grassroots task force that goes and does this work in their parts of the world.
And then, the equipping and training of younger women in ministry to serve the Lord in ways that are feasible in their season of life. Many of these women still are in the process of raising their own children, and so what their ministry looks like now will look different in ten years.
In ten years, some of those women will be empty-nesters. They will have even greater opportunities as they’re being seasoned and trained and developed in biblical thinking and a biblical philosophy of what it means to be a woman of God.
So, I want to encourage those women. We want to resource them. We want to mentor them, so that they’re going to be doing the work of ministry in many different places and ways—beyond Revive Our Hearts’ scope.
And there are a number of projects that I’m working on and have in mind, and we’ve begun to talk about the devotional study Bible that I’m working on with the Christian Standard Bible and our friends at LifeWay Bibles.
This is a big project for me for the next few years. I’ve been very excited about that undertaking! If I had a single contribution to make in my sixties to women in our churches and women who are impacted, to be able to offer a tool that gets them into the Word and takes them like a friend taking them by the hand and saying, “Let’s walk through the Scripture together.” I don’t know anything that would be a greater joy than doing a Bible like that. So that’s a great privilege. There are other books that are on my heart, there are other events we’re talking about, other recording projects.
But when it comes down to it, what I long to see . . . The Scripture talks about, “The glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.” (see Hab. 2:14) That hardly seems possible today! It seems like there are a whole lot of other things—not the glory of the Lord, but the opposite way of thinking—that are covering the earth today as the waters cover the sea!
We have so much evil, so much false teaching, just this overwhelming flood of darkness in our world. And much of that is flooding into, seeping under the doorstops, coming into our churches and into our Christian thinking.
It’s heartbreaking to me! But I believe that heaven rules, and I know that in the end heaven wins and that the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. So, it has long been my longing, my desire, my efforts are given to this, that the glory of God would be seen in and through His people.
I desire that there would be an army of women (men as well, but I’m speaking to the women) who will think biblically, who will love what God loves, who have courage and faith and humility, who will be winsome—not just people who can batter others on social media, because truth is a powerful weapon, but it can also be dangerous if it’s used in pride or not in godly ways. So, women who in their sphere of influence, wherever that is, whatever that looks like, that:
- They’re representing the heart and the Spirit of Jesus.
- They’re reaching their neighbors.
- They’re discipling their children.
- They’re loving their elderly parents well.
- They’re caring for the marginalized and the most vulnerable.
- They’re caring for babies in the womb and moms who are carrying those babies.
- In a host of different ways, it will look different for different women, but they’re living out the beauty of the gospel as Christian women.
I have a special heart to challenge women who are in my generation, in the Boomers who are in the process of retiring. Many have retired in recent years and many more will retire in the next few years. They have a window here of energy; they’ve got experience, they’ve learned wisdom by the things they’ve done well—and the mistakes they’ve made as well. They have an opportunity while they still have life and breath and strength to influence, and to use that influence for the sake of the gospel!
There are 77 million Boomers in this country, and that’s a huge generation! But it breaks my heart to see so many just wanting to take it easy . . . like, “I’ve paid my dues, and now let somebody else do the hard work.”
I get it. I feel that at moments myself. I get tired, and it takes me more to bounce back today than it did twenty years ago when we started this ministry. God has things for seasons of our lives.
You know, the priests in the Old Testament retired at age fifty. But they didn’t go off the scene. They were to still stay around and serve the Levites and the elders and the priests, and they had a role. It was a different role than when they were thirty or forty, but they still had a role.
And that’s what I want to say to those of us women who are in our fifties, sixties, seventies, even into our eighties. As long as God gives us breath, let’s do what He gives us strength to do and not say, “It’s time for somebody else to do all the hard work.”
Yes, there are women picking up the baton in their twenties and thirties and forties, and that’s a good thing, and we need to encourage them. But we just still need to be available to pray for them.
Our friend, Vonette Bright, was a beautiful illustration of this to me. Until she died in her eighties, she was earnestly encouraging the next generation, loving others well. She died seven weeks after Robert and I got married. She was cheering for us and praying for us and encouraging us during our courtship and was at our wedding to pray for us.
Here was a woman who basically had a death sentence. She had a terminal illness, but there she was in her bright red outfit in her wheelchair, saying, “I want to pray for you, I want to cheer for you!” I want to be a Vonette Bright, even if I’m doing it from a wheelchair at some point down the road.
So, with the goal of helping to encourage a climate that’s conducive to the glory of God filling the earth as the waters cover the sea. that’s what I long for.
Dannah: That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth expressing her desires for her own life and for the future ministry of Revive Our Hearts. That kind of attitude only comes if we’re willing to surrender our own ambitions and say, “Yes, Lord!” to whatever His will is for our lives. Isn’t that right, Nancy?
Nancy: So true, Dannah! And that two-word phrase, “Yes, Lord!” has become such an important foundation in my own heart. I said this a few days ago, but I want to say it again now. My life verse is from Luke chapter 1, where we read Mary’s response to the angel Gabriel when he told her that she was going to be the mother of Jesus, the Messiah.
She said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (v. 28). And I can just imagine her with her hands upraised, open palms. In other words, she was saying, “Yes, Lord!” to God’s plan for her life, with all of its joys and sorrows, difficulties and triumphs . . . simply, “Yes, Lord!”
Dannah: I always love hearing you talk about Mary and those two simple words, “Yes, Lord!” You know that phrase, “Yes, Lord!” has been something that’s become sort of a treasure here at Revive Our Hearts the past twenty years.
I want to quickly let our listeners know that they can receive a beautifully designed, frameable 5x7 print that simply says, “Yes, Lord!” It’s our thank you to you for your gift of any amount to support the ministry of Revive Our Hearts.
And . . . we’re packaging it along with the classic study by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth and Mary Kassian, True Woman 101. So both the “Yes, Lord!” print and the 8-week Bible study True Woman 101 are yours for a donation of any size this month.
To give, just go to ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1–800–569–5959. Ask about the study and the print when you contact us with your donation.
Well, Nancy, on behalf of our listeners, can I just take a moment and say, “Thank you! Thank you for saying, ‘Yes, Lord!’ to God’s plan for your life.” It’s impacted my life. It’s impacted everyone listening. The ripple effect has touched all of us deeply.
Nancy: Aww, thank you so much, Dannah. I’m greatly encouraged by those words! Let me just respond with this verse from Psalm 115, verse 1. It says, “Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory because of your faithful love, because of your truth” (CSB).
So, the glory doesn’t go to me or to Revive Our Hearts or to any of us. All the glory goes to the Lord. He’s the One who has been faithful. We’re so blessed and grateful to be lifting up His truth and sharing it with women all around the world!
Dannah: So true, Nancy. As we celebrate this birthday of your life, as well as the birthday of Revive Our Hearts, we are in one way saying, “Thank You, Lord!” So, to that end, can I squeeze in one more birthday wish?
Nancy: Oh, sure, that would be sweet. Thanks, Dannah.
Dannah: Heidi from Michigan called to leave you this precious message.
Heidi: I have been touched and influenced by Nancy so many times over the past many years. I was so touched just hearing Nancy share throughout Robert’s cancer journey with two different cancers, and just the reminder that heaven rules.
Not only has Nancy just taught so well how to handle a situation like that, she's modeled how to live it out. I had no idea, but I am now living that out.
Dannah: Heidi says her husband has been diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic melanoma. She reflected about a specific episode of Revive Our Hearts that especially ministered to her.
Heidi: In June my husband was having a PET scan. I was able to find a quiet bench, and I started listening to the podcast from the day before.
Nancy (from podcast): Where there is fear, there is not faith; where there is faith, fear will be dissolved.
Heidi: I just sat there with my Bible open in the waiting room, listening to Nancy's teaching on trusting God for the promised land.
Nancy: You cannot walk by faith and live in fear; you cannot live in fear and walk by faith.
Heidi: I acknowledged that this metastatic melanoma is just a huge “giant” in the land, but the Lord has used Nancy in such a profound way. And this specific podcast just anchored my heart to God's Word and to walk in faith, taking the next step, knowing that God is with me, and His presence will go before me. I just want to trust Him for that promised land.
So, thank you Nancy, and I want to wish you a very happy birthday. I just pray that the Lord will crown you with His mercies and His tender loving kindnesses today and in the future. And may you know how loved you are and just what a blessing you are to so many women. Thanks, Nancy.
Nancy: Ah, Heidi, my heart just goes out to you as I’ve heard your testimony here. I remember dreading that we might be hearing those words that Robert had metastatic melanoma just about a year ago. (We’re so thankful that wasn’t the case.) I want to lift you up to the Lord, as that’s what you’re facing today.
And, Lord, together we join in lifting up our friend Heidi to Your throne of grace. She and her precious husband need You right now! They need Your mercy; they need Your grace; they need Your strength; they need Your help. Oh, Lord, I pray that You would encourage them; that You would strengthen them; that You would remind them that You can be trusted to write their story.
I pray that through their journey You would be glorified and they would be sanctified, and that all of this would result in great honor for Your Name! So we lift up our precious sister and pray Your blessing on her, amen.
Dannah: Amen! Ah, one of my favorite things about the Revive Our Hearts sisterhood across the world is that we truly do pray for each other. And if ever we needed to, it’s now, because the headlines can cause some fear and despair.
In fact, if you’re tempted to look at current events with despair, you’re going to love hearing next week’s series here on Revive Our Hearts. Nancy will open up Psalm 37 and tell us how to have “A Calm Heart in a Troubled World.”
In fact, let me encourage you to grab your Bible over the weekend and just read through Psalm 37 so the Lord might begin to prepare your heart for what God has put on Nancy’s heart. I hope you’ll join us next week for Revive Our Hearts.
This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, calling you to say “Yes, Lord!” and experience greater freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.
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