We Have Jesus!

Dannah Gresh: As a child, Ashley Gibson was abused by her father. She has a message for you.

Ashley Gibson: I just want you to know that whatever happens in your life, God is so good! He will redeem what you’ve been through. You might never see it this side of eternity, but He will!

Dannah: Strong words of comfort today on the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Adorned, for December 14, 2023. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Nancy, every now and then we run into someone, we hear their story, and we say, “This person really gets it!” She’s been through a lot at her young age already, but the Spirit of God has His hand on her life, and she sees how the gospel informs all of her life.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: So true, Dannah. And our guest today, Ashley, certainly falls into that category. I’m so thankful that today she’s a part of the Revive Our Hearts team. In fact, if you’ve followed any of our social media outreaches—Facebook, Instagram, Twitter—you’ve seen Ashley’s work, and she does such a great job!

Yesterday on Revive Our Hearts, Ashley shared how when she was young she was wrongfully treated, sexually abused by her own father, whom everyone thought was a great guy. She said, “No one knew.” That abuse affected Ashely’s impression of men in general.

When one of her professors at a Chrstian college brought up the subject of the roles of men and women, including the concept of submission in marriage, all sorts of alarms went off in Ashley’s head. She said, “That’s how people get hurt!”

Perhaps those same alarms have gone off in your head when you’ve heard the concept of submission. Humanly speaking, that’s entirely understandable.

Dannah: But it was, Nancy, as she read your book, Adorned: Living Out the Beauty of the Gospel Together, that she began to better understand what God’s design is for men and women. If you missed yesterday’s episode, you can still listen to it through the Revive Our Hearts app or online at ReviveOurHearts.com. 

Nancy: Today we’re going to pick up with the second part of the conversation Ashley had with Erin Davis. Erin starts with an important clarification about this whole idea of submission.

Erin Davis: I can picture you, I can picture twenty-something Ashley in your dorm room with your marked up copy of Adorned. I can even picture the Lord’s Spirit with you and working within you. And you come to this realization, “Okay, ‘submission’ is not a bad word. It’s not a bad concept. It’s beautiful.”

But, what you didn’t do is leave your dorm room, go find your abuser, and decide, “It’s now really safe for you and I to live in the same home, and I’m going to submit to you now, because it’s this beautiful thing.”

Ashley: Right.

Erin: So I want to make sure that for the woman listening, as we are talking about these things, we do some defining of biblical submission. So, you’re right, Scripture certainly does call women to submit to the authority of their husbands, and there is a call to honor our mother and father in Scripture, and that we show that honor often through obedience.

But that doesn’t mean that you stay under the heavy hand of abuse or you endure ongoing sexual abuse without telling someone. God doesn’t want His children to be abused. 

So, talk a little bit about how you began to work out the realities of submission even as you begin to embrace that, “Okay, I can see that idea is biblical and good.” How does that get executed in a story like yours?

Ashley: My now-husband has been so instrumental in that. I had always been afraid of being in a relationship, I think for obvious reasons. I had never been the little girl who grew up dreaming of getting married. I think just because I had seen such an ugly picture of things. 

When my now-husband came into my life, he’s just so sweet and so gentle and so loving. He shows me the Lord in ways that I’ve never seen the Lord before. When we started dating, I just remember I had this moment where I thought, That’s a man that I could submit to, because that’s a man who’s following the heart of Christ!

I think for me, our marriage and our dating relationship has been such a huge thing that the Lord has used to just redeem my view of men and my view of submission.

Erin: I don’t want to water down what you’re saying at all because it’s beautiful and it’s true. But I also want to acknowledge that this is something that each of us must take to the Lord and walk out, and it doesn’t look the same in each of our lives.

There is actually not a man on the earth who is worthy of being submitted to all the time, because every man currently walking the earth is a sinner! So, Scripture’s call is not just to submit to those who are worthy. 

To use it in a different context, in the New Testament even Jesus Himself would frequently talk about submitting to the authorities—meaning the civic authorities, the government authorities—that God has put in place.

When those government authorities . . . Think of Daniel. When King Darius’s law of the land was that you had to bow to him, then no longer could Daniel submit in good conscience to the authority over him, because the choice was to submit to God’s authority or to King Darius’s authority.

That’s where things, admittedly, can get complicated. We don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. We don’t say because this is complicated, this can’t be right or good. But when you’re in a situation where there is abuse, and someone is intentionally and repeatedly harming you, they are not in God’s will. He doesn’t want us to hurt each other. 

And so that’s a point where I would just encourage a woman listening—or maybe even a child listening—get some help at that point!

Ashley: Yes!

Erin: It is hard to sort it out yourself. It can be hard to advocate for yourself. It can be hard to see, “What are the safe lines here? Who do I tell? What do I tell?” But I hope that you have people in your life you can tell, who love the Lord and can rightly direct you.

But it doesn’t always go well the first time. You all actually went to your church leadership. 

Ashley: Yes, and it was not received well at all, because my dad was in church leadership. The church very much took the stance of, “Well, in our eyes he’s an upstanding man, so we don’t see how this could happen.”

Erin: I can imagine how defeating that was, and what a mind twister that must have been, like, “Well, is he . . .? Are we . . .? Is this . . .?” I’ve met your momma once, and I wanted to hug her because she was an advocate for the truth and an advocate for walking out God’s Word in hard ways, but in beautiful ways. 

So, I want to acknowledge that you didn’t leave that dorm room, move back in with your dad, and put yourself back under his abuse. 

Ashley: Absolutely not.

Erin: In fact, you’ll never live with him again. That’s not a safe thing for you to do. But then, you have to start walking out this paradigm shift. You met Collin, and you started to fall in love. There was a moment where you tried to push him away, because it was scary to think about a life with a man, with a husband, as your authority. You were talking about marriage. Do you remember that moment?

Ashley: Yes, I do. It was one of the first times that we’d ever had a disagreement. I just had this mindset of, “Okay, I’m just going to push you away, because it’s the easy thing to do.” I just remember thinking, I’m just going to throw in the towel, and that’s going to be it. 

Erin: You were trying to get him to break up with you, or you were going to break up with him. 

Ashley: Yeah, I wanted him to do it because then I could just . . . I don’t know. But I wanted him to do it. I was like, “Okay, I’m just going to throw in the towel.” He was so gracious and said, “Ashley, I love you. I’m not going to throw in the towel. So if you love me, you’re not going to throw it in either. We’re going to sit down, and we’re going to work through this. I’m not giving up on you.” 

He just has been such a sweet reminder of how I don’t have to earn his love, which, in turn, has been such a sweet picture of the Lord and how we don’t have to earn His love.

Erin: Yes, I love that. I think that can be one of the residual effects of this kind of sin scarring. Self-implosion: “This relationship will self-destruct, because I’m going to push down on the lever, so to speak, to keep myself from getting hurt.”

But the Lord was moving you forward. You got married. You’re a newlywed as we’re recording this. Do those fears of submission, those fears of God’s plan, do they still rise up in you? What does that look like?

Ashley: Yeah, every once in a while I have this just residual fear of, “What if Collin leaves? What if he changes? What if something happens?” And he’s never done one thing to ever make me think that, but Satan can back me into that corner so easily.

The corner of, “Everyone else left,” or “Everyone else wronged you. What if hedid it? You never thought your dad would do something.” And so, it’s just I think speaking truth over that and just remembering the covenant we made before the Lord and remembering how much he loves me and how much the Lord loves me, and no matter what happens, God is good! I can say that now and actually mean it. 

And if anyone gets anything from this, I just want you to know that whatever happens in your life, God is so good! He will redeem what you’ve been through. You might never see it this side of eternity, but He will!

Erin: Yes. It’s really beautiful. I keep thinking about your momma, probably because I’m a momma, and I have kids in the range of your childhood. I try to imagine if one of them came to me and expressed that they had experienced what you experienced. The devastation must have been all-consuming for her!

But that’s where her faith really got legs and started walking around, where it became probably more real, because she was able to operate in the fact that even though . . . I mean, it ultimately cost her her marriage.

Ashley: Yes. 

Erin: Even though the cost is high, God is good, and you and your mom have a beautiful relationship now. You continue to be a source of hope and strength to each other, so it’s good that you’re thinking about the women who are listening to this.

There will be people listening to this that are on your side of the table, that are the abused. But there will be those listening to this who are on your mom’s side of the table. It did not happen to them, but it did, by default, happen to somebody they loved.

There’s probably a lot of shame and a lot of guilt. How have you seen your mom cling to what’s true over the long haul, because now this has been many years. I keep saying this, but I want to reiterate it: this doesn’t just go away, the impact doesn’t just go away. So, what have you seen in your mom as she’s walked out her trust in the Lord?

Ashley: Yes, it’s been so sweet just watching her cling to Jesus. I remember after my dad went to prison, we were just all kind of just sitting around the house like, “Oka-a-ay . . . what do we do now?” My mom had been a homeschool mom before. She didn’t have a job at the time. So, all the sudden, instant single mom, no job lined up.

Erin: And did you leave that church that you had been a part of?

Ashley: We did.

Erin: So, instant single mom, no longer a part of the church family where she had been established, lots and lots of complicated hurt and trauma happening in your life.

Ashley: She just clung to Jesus. I remember her saying, “We have Jesus, and Jesus is what we need.” 

And I was like, “Okay, if Mom believes that, then I’m going to at least bank on my mom.” Because I didn’t know if I could believe that right then.

But I was like, “Okay, my mom is so confident in this. I’m just going to keep following her footsteps.” I remember I’d wake up in the morning, and she’d be sitting on her bed just reading her Bible and crying.

Erin: What a precious image.

Ashley: Yes. And there were always tissues everywhere and her little pink highlighter that she always highlights her Bible with. I just remember walking by, and I’d always just peek in and see her just poring over the Word of God. I was like, “I don’t know how you’re doing this!” Because that was the last thing that I wanted to do. 

Even at that young age, with not understanding things, my instinct was not to run to the Word. My instinct was just to be like, “Oh, I don’t really understand what’s going on, and maybe God doesn’t understand what’s going on.”

But that Bible, she has it on her nightstand, and the spine is falling off. It’s held together by some chevron pink duct tape. It’s falling apart. The pages when you flip through it, you can see the tear marks on the pages and her highlighting and her writing.

Erin: What a treasure!

Ashley: It’s so sweet to see how the Lord used her faith to keep all of us going and to keep all of us hanging on . . . because I feel like my faith wasn’t really working at the time. I was just really clinging onto my mom and being like, “Okay, if she believes this, maybe I can too.”

Erin: We were talking before we hit “record,” about a sermon you’d heard. The pastor said, “Jesus is all we need.” And like this very strong reaction rose up in me. I was like, “No! We need each other!” And of course Jesus is sufficient, and of course only Jesus can meet our deepest needs.

But you’re explaining a way that God wired us, which is that in the valley we turn to each other. When our faith is weak, we cling to the ones whose faith is strong. That will reverse at some point. 

But the strength of a woman, when her whole family—her whole world really—is falling apart, to decide, “I’m going to cling to Jesus and His Word,” is such a really beautiful picture! I’m so grateful that you had that, and that the Holy Spirit empowered her to walk through that season with that kind of strength.

I’m glad you mentioned the Word and that your mom was in the Word. God’s Word is not a book we read—though it is a book we read—it’s living and active (see Heb. 4:12). So even as you had some resistance and didn’t fully understand the Lord, were there places in Scripture that during that season you held onto, even though they didn’t totally make sense?

Ashley: Yes, honestly the only thing that I read probably eighth through twelfth grades was Psalm 27. That’s the only place that I sat, it’s the only place I could get myself to, specifically verse 13, where it says, “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of [God]in the land of the living.” (NKJV)

I clung to that like, “Eventually I will see the goodness of God, even while I am here on this earth. And even though I don’t see it right now, I will see it eventually.” I would have lost heart, but the Lord was just hanging onto me.

Erin: I’m not surprised it was a psalm, because the psalms are for the grieving, the psalms are for the wrestling. The psalms are for the, “Why me?” “Why, God?!” Those of us who think those questions and sometimes say them out loud. Any of us who have been in the valley, but believe that the Bible has something to offer has parked in the psalms. 

You know, you weren’t exegeting the major and minor prophets, you weren’t dissecting the sentence structure of the epistles, you weren’t reading the Bible in a year. You were clinging for year after year after year to a single verse in a single psalm, and the Lord was using that as a trail of breadcrumbs to lead you to a deeper understanding of Him. 

I do want to keep bringing it back to the woman whose listening and she’s resonating with your story, and yet, she still is thinking, I’m not sure. I am just not sure how God can be good. I am just not sure how this could be true. But, like you, God won’t let her go. She could cling to a single verse in a single psalm for five years. 

Ashley: Yes!

Erin: And the Lord will use it to feed her and to show her who He is. So there’s real beauty in there. Okay, let’s fast forward a little bit. You’re in Bible college, and you begin to believe that God could use your messy story and that His plan is good, even when that doesn’t seem to be true.

You begin to believe that His plan is good and that you could submit to a godly man. You meet Collin and then, we, Revive Our Hearts, hear about you. You interview to become a part of the ministry team at Revive Our Hearts. How did that happen?!

Ashley: That is totally a God story! So, I finished my undergraduate degree in English. My gut reaction was, “I’m going to become a Christian school teacher and teach English. That’s the safe option.”

I had felt the Lord pushing me toward ministry, but I thought like just in my local church. (I don’t want to say, “just,” because the local church is the lifeblood! The local church is so important. I cannot overstate that.)

But I didn’t have peace at all with any of the jobs that I was applying for. I was kind of wrestling through, “Okay, Lord, why . . .”

Erin: And I know what you mean by, “just an English teacher.” That’s a super worthy calling, and there are people who are called. We need Christian teachers in every school in the world! So that is a great use of gifts. But for you there was this feeling of, “God has called me to something, maybe, that feels a little scarier.” 

Ashley: Yes. I knew that that was the safe option, and I just did not have any peace. It was two weeks before I graduated, and I hadn’t heard anything back from any of the places I had applied to. I don’t want to sound mystic, but I just had this feeling in the pit of my stomach that, “This is not what you’re supposed to be doing.”

I was praying about it and praying about it, and I felt like I wasn’t getting any answers. I had a professor who just asked me casually (she didn’t even know that I was wrestling through this), “Have you ever considered going to seminary?”

I said, “Not even once. I’ve never considered going to seminary!”

And she said, “I just think that you should consider it.” And over the course of the next two days, six different people asked me, “Have you ever considered going to seminary?” 

And I was like, “Okay, God, I get it. I get what you are trying to tell me!” 

So I went and I applied and I did a Master of Ministries program (MMin program). I finished that, and I was coming towards the end of that program, and I started to apply for jobs again.

I had applied for a couple of different Christian ministries. I had applied to a couple of different publishers. I wasn’t hearing anything again. I was like, “Okay, God, this happened last time, and you totally redirected me.” 

Erin: “Am I supposed to go to school again!?” (laughter)

Ashley: I was like, “Am I getting a PhD? What’s going on?” I had known of Revive Our Hearts by then, obviously. You guys had had such an impact on my life, so I thought, I’ll just apply for Revive Our Hearts.

So I went on the website, and there were no jobs posted. I was just like, “I’m just going to do it!” So I just looked up the email and I sent my resume and my cover letter—just cold. For three weeks I didn’t hear anything, and I thought, Okay, it’s just another dead end.

And then I got an email from Monica . . . I love Monica!

Erin: Monica is the head of our HR department here at Revive Our Hearts. She’s really the first one to receive those kinds of applications, and she has a ministry, a tremendous heart to see people who have been impacted by the ministry and are gifted by the Lord for the sake of His kingdom plugged into the right places in Revive Our Hearts.

So I’m not surprised she’s the first one you heard from, and I’m not surprised you love her!

Ashley: Yes, so she sent me an email, and it was like, “We don’t have anything open right now, but I would love to hop on a call and get to meet you!” 

So I was like, Okay, it can’t hurt. That’s exciting. I get to talk to someone from Revive Our Hearts!So we hopped on a call and I think . . .were you there on that first call?

Erin: I was wondering why you were telling this story. I was there soon after. If it wasn’t the first one, I joined the next time, I think.

So after that, there was no guarantee that there was any kind of position, but she said, “We just wanted to get to know you.” And then after several different interviews, and then I got to meet Erin—whom I love!—the Lord just opened so many doors and brought me here!

It was just a crazy story because there were no openings, and then the Lord just maneuvered it around that I ended up here. I was here as a contractor for six months, and then the Lord moved me into a full-time position, which has been so sweet.

Erin: You serve on our social media team. You’re a social media content specialist. I’ve told you this before, but the first time I met you I thought, This girl, we need her! We need her at Revive Our Hearts!

I didn’t even know most of what we’ve been talking about in this episode, but your heart for the Lord was evident. I knew enough about your story to know that you had been deeply impacted by the ministry, and all of us who are here have been. That’s why we’re here!

We believe this message. We acknowledge that it is countercultural, but we believe that God can revive hearts—even dead hearts, even hearts that are questioning the goodness of God. God can revive our hearts!

We also believe that a woman whose heart has been revived, when she submits herself to the authority of Scripture first, then can live out the beauty of God’s design, even in complex situations and places. So we’re so grateful you’re here.

I don’t want to pretend that that’s the end of your story, it’s not. I know that the Lord has many things in store for you, but God has used Revive Our Hearts as part of His plan for redemption in your life. And how sweet it is that you’re now here serving in ministry, calling other women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Him. I love that! 

Ashley: Me, too!

Dannah: That’s Erin Davis talking to Ashley Gibson about the work God has done in her life. Erin will be back to pray in a moment, but first Nancy, what a privilege it is as Erin just mentioned, for Revive Our Hearts to have played a part in Ashley’s story. She’s one of many thousands of women who are part of the fruit of this ministry.

Nancy: You’re right, Dannah. In fact, I can remember some time ago when Robert and I first met Ashley and sat across the table from her at dinner and heard her share her story. I was just so deeply moved to think of the work God has done in this young woman’s life, and in so many like her!

But I would be remiss if I didn’t pause and give credit to some people here. First of all to the Lord. The transformation that has happened in Ashley’s life—and in all these women’s lives around the world—is all His doing! Yes, Revive Our Hearts shows up in her story, but all the glory goes to God!

He’s the One doing the work.

Second, I want to give credit and a huge thank you, to our sponsors who keep Revive Our Hearts going. These are thousands of individuals who have prayed for Revive Our Hearts and made financial sacrifices so we can continue helping women like Ashley.

You may be one of those people. If so, let me just say thank you so much! As a listener-supported ministry, we can’t continue doing what we do day after day without your prayers and your financial support.

If you’ve never prayed for or given to Revive Our Hearts—or even if you have—today would be a wonderful time to do that! Can I ask you to take some time at some point in your day today and pray for Revive Our Hearts?

Pray for our staff—for people like Erin and Ashley, whom you’ve heard from today. Pray for anointing and enabling and grace in each of their lives and their families, and for the ministry as a whole. Pray that we’d stay faithful to God’s Word and that we would each love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength!

Now I’m going to be bold here and ask you this: would you ask the Lord if He would want you to give a gift today to support Revive Our Hearts? Every donation this month will be matched dollar for dollar. Not only does that mean double the number of dollars received, but I believe it also will be a multiplying of the fruit that results from that investment.

As we’ve been sharing with you recently, giving over the past several months has been lower than what we anticipated. So it would mean a lot if we could hear from you today. You could be one of those sponsors who help to underwrite beautiful stories like Ashley’s, that we’ve heard today.

Dannah: Here’s how you can make a donation. Go to ReviveOurHearts.com, select “donate,” and fill in the appropriate information there, or call us at 1-800-569-5959. In order for your donation to be doubled, we need to hear from you before January 1.

What could you do this Christmas to make the season more meaningful? That’s what we’ll talk about tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts. Now, here’s Erin Davis to close our program today.

Erin: I want to pray. I want to pray for the women who are listening to this. You can’t see us, but Ashley and I have teared up multiple times as we’ve been having this conversation. That’s for several reasons. It’s because Ashely’s story is heartbreaking, but it’s also because we know she’s far from the only one who has ever experienced—or will ever experience—abuse at the hand of someone who was supposed to take care of them (her dad). God’s design is that fathers would be these protectors of the ones in their home. And the one that was supposed to protect you, harmed you.

God’s design is that husbands would love their wives in such a way that—by some mystery—it would resemble Christ’s love for His Bride, the Church. And yet, sometimes husbands are the ones that do harm. 

God’s design is that pastors would be reflections of the Good Shepherd and that they would shepherd their flock well, and yet sometimes the pastors are the ones hurting the sheep. That’s hard to think about, and it’s heartbreaking.

But your story is such a story of hope and beauty and the goodness of God. You keep talking about that. So all of that’s true at the same time. I just want to pray for the woman that’s listening that has had a story like yours.

Lord, we love You and we believe that You love us. That doesn’t always seem true. It doesn't always feel true, but it’s true. You are a good God! You do good, and You have good in store for us. That can feel impossible. It can feel like a fairytale. But as Ashley has been describing her hard story, Your goodness is so evident in the midst of it.

So I do pray for every individual listening who has experienced harm at the hand of someone who is supposed to love them well. I pray that they would get the sense that this episode is just for them, and that You are attentive, and that you can bring redemption. And that even when sinful man breaks Your design, rebels against Your plan, that You are still good, and Your plan is still good. We love You. We commit our lives to You again and again and again. It’s in Your name I pray, amen.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is calling you not to lose heart, but believe in the freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness of Christ!

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