Snapshots: Generational and Global

Dannah Gresh: Have you ever participated in one of those conversation threads on social media where you post your most recent photo? It can be fun—or even funny—to see what your friends are taking pictures of!

Let me pull out my phone! Hmm . . . it’s a video of me and my dog, Moose, walking in the farm fields beside my house. Oh, I treasure those walks with my furry friend! Well, today Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is going to share a few memories she’s treasuring. 

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I want to start our time today by sharing with you some snapshots—some photos not from my camera roll—but from my head and heart. 

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Choosing Gratitude, for December 9, 2024. I’m Dannah Gresh.

I realize you’re listening to an audio-only program here, so Nancy can’t show you any literal photos. But let’s listen as she shares some highlights from recent months at Revive Our Hearts. She was speaking just a few weeks ago to a gathering of our ministry partners in Colorado Springs. Here’s Nancy.

Nancy: Sometimes at the end of the year, Robert and I will pick up our phones, maybe just around the dinner table, and we’ll start scrolling through our photos and thinking about what we’ve done over the past year.

We did it four months ago, and we were like, “Oh, yeah, I forgot! We had the greatest time at dinner with that couple!” Or, that friend that showed some kindness to us. We just start reminiscing and reflecting about our year—people we’ve met, experiences we’ve had, opportunities the Lord has given us together and with others to be a blessing or to be blessed, to serve Him, to serve others.

And so, I want to start our time today by sharing with you some “snapshots,” some “photos,” not from my camera roll, but from my head and heart—the eyes of my heart—as I think back over this past year and see how God has been working, what He’s been doing. These are some selected snapshots from this past year, some highlights that stand out in my mind as we think of how God is moving.

There are two words that we’ve been using a lot around Revive Our Hearts, and you’ll hear these reflected in different ones of these “snapshots.” The first word is “generational.” We’re seeing God take this message from one generation to the next, to the next, and passing it on.

This makes me feel old, I’ll admit. But it’s thrilling to me to see! I’m hearing stories of third- and even fourth-generation impact and response to ways that people have been blessed and encouraged and served by this ministry!

So, we’re being very intentional about saying, “Lord, don’t let this just be a ‘Boomer’ message, but let it press deep into the hearts of the next generation, and the generation beyond that!” So you’ll hear some of that. 

So, “generational” and then you’ll hear the word or get the sense of “global.” As God is spreading the message, not just taking it down into next generations and sometimes up generationally but also globally as we’re seeing God spread the message through people like us . . . and others.

We heard Albert sharing about how God has worked in Sabrina’s life. And you’ll hear from them later this week about how the Farsi-speaking women—women with Persian or Iranian background—are being reached.

If you’re reading your news, you know that’s a really precious and needed outreach into the hearts of women. One hundred and ten or one hundred twenty million people in the world who speak Farsi. I don’t speak a word of Farsi, but Sabrina does! God has worked in her heart, and now that message is going out globally to those women and through others in this ministry as well.

So, just some I want to say “random,” but they’re not random, they’re just selected highlights. One that comes to my mind is a woman that I had a chance to meet several weeks ago; she was in a recording session. This is a woman who is a missionary in Portugal; her name is Sarah.

She was going to be on furlough home in the States not too far from where we live. We asked her to share a little bit about how she connected with Revive Our Hearts. I want you to listen to just a short audio clip of what Sarah shared with us that afternoon. Let’s roll that.

Sarah: It started with my mom who listened to Elisabeth Elliot’s program, Gateway to Joy. I remember one day I came home from college break and she told me, “They have this new young person who has taken over her program, and now it’s called Revive Our Hearts”—and it was you!

She immediately was listening to your program, as well.

After I finished college I became a teacher, and thankfully my job had me working at more than one school. My lunch break where I had to drive from one school to the other was exactly at the moment that your program was on the radio. It was the year before I got married, and you helped me grow so much teaching on the Proverbs 31 woman and other things like that!

I really, really grew, just like my mom grew a lot through your program. When we moved to Portugal, I didn’t have a radio station where I could hear you. But eventually I was able to get a phone where I could start listening to your podcasts., and that’s helped me in a huge way as a wife and now a mother. 

Honestly, there are so many days of my giving out to others that I’ve felt like you’ve been like a Sunday school teacher to me, somebody who has been pouring into me as I try to pour into other people.

So now, many of the resources are in Portuguese, and I’m so thankful that you guys have done this! Before I would try to take what I learned and explain it to the ladies. But now to have the podcast directly in their language, many of the books and resources in their language . . . I’ve had ladies in our church come up to me with tears in their eyes and just be like, “Oh, Sarah! That podcast!” And they are getting so blessed by these resources as well.

You’ve influenced three generations of my family. My daughter, she’s got your books, she’s doing some of the studies. My son got the Lies Boys Believe book this year for Christmas. And of all the toys that he’d asked for, of anything else, that book was his favorite gift that he got for Christmas!

He came up and apologized and said, “Mom, I know I was supposed to read this little by little, but I read the whole thing in two days! I’m sorry.” He loves it! So, like I said, three generations of my family you guys have influenced. And now the people that we’re ministering to in Portugal are being influenced, too. So, just thank you so much for investing in all of us! 

Nancy: Amen! So you hear some generational impact and some global impact, just in that one two-minute clip. Let me share another from the “camera roll” of my heart from this year.

I received a note, a hand-written letter, not too long ago from a young mom named Hannah. She said: 

When I was about fourteen years old, my dad encouraged me to tune into a radio program called Revive Our Hearts that he had recently stumbled upon. That began my journey with ROH.

Now, almost twenty-two years later, I’m a wife, and mother of three small children. After a number of years of losing touch with your ministry I reconnected about four years ago when my first daughter was a baby, and I was struggling a lot as a new mom.

Thus began our family tradition of turning on the ROH daily podcast during breakfast prep time and while I feed my little flock. Now my two little girls ask about listening to “Miss Nancy,” and they try to say, “Freedom, Fullness, and Fruitfulness in Christ” in unison at the end of each program.”

Recently, my little four-and-a-half year-old Abigail was able to earn her first bit of money ever. She was so excited! She said she wanted to give some to ROH, “so they could tell more people about Jesus”

In that letter was enclosed eleven dollars and also a precious note for me from little Abigail. 

Dear Miss Nancy,
I love you, and I enjoy listening to ROH.
Love,
Abigail, four years old.

And then this picture that she had colored for me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, I couldn’t pass up the chance, and so I took the opportunity to call Hannah and her precious children. We scheduled a call. I wanted to hear more about their story. Hannah shared that Abigail has cystic fibrosis. 

The way she earned her money was, the hospital that she’s connected to was doing a study, and they asked if she would like to do the study, and she would make a little money. 

The parents said to Abigail, “Do you want to do this?”

She said, “Yes.” And then she said specifically, “I want to give $11 to Revive Our Hearts!” 

Her mom said, “I don’t know where that number came from, but that’s specifically what she said she wanted to send.” 

So, I want to play for you just a short clip of the end of our call that we recorded that day, and you’ll get to hear these little girls, Abigail and her little sister.

Nancy (on telephone call with Abigail and her sister): Now, your mom told me that you and your little sister like to say something that you hear at the end of our program every day. Do you remember what that is?”

Abigail and her little sister: Yes. “Fweedom, Fullness, Fwuitfulness in Christ!” 

Nancy: I love that! “Freedom, Fullness, and Fruitfulness in Christ!” I think you’re the youngest person I’ve ever heard say that! (girls laugh)

Hannah: And Abigail wants you to know that one of her favorite songs to sing is “Come Thou Fount.”

Nancy: Really!? Well, you know, we play that on the program every day, just the music part of it. 

Hannah: That’s right. Abigail, would you like to sing just the first line of it? 

Abigail: Uh-huh! Come thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing Thy praise.

Nancy: Oh, I love that! How precious is that?!

Hannah: So, girls, can you thank Miss Nancy for taking the time to call us today?

Girls (a jumble of): Thanks Miss Nancy, thank you! I love you, bye!

Nancy: I love you, bye sweet girls! 

Generational. Think of the seeds being planted in those little girls’ hearts—a dad who introduced his fourteen-year-old to this message from God’s Word (that’s what makes it powerful), and then she’s now introducing it to her little children. So, it goes on!

Well, I received another letter, this one was from a little girl I’m going to call Addy (that’s not her real name). But this letter came, and Martin Jones’ wife, Helen, is on our prayer team. She received this one to pray for. And they sent it to me saying, “We think you’d want to know about this.”--and I sure did! Here’s what she wrote. She said: 

My name is Addy. My mom does not really read the mail unless it is a bill or something like that, but I always read it! When I read the mail from you, I thought I should give something.

Now, what she had received was a monthly letter that we send out to a lot of our ministry constituents. This one was talking about a resource we were offering for those who are praying for prodigals. That’s the letter that little Addy opened. She said: 

I know you’re supposed to give with a check or something like that, but I am only ten years old, so the only form of money I have is in cash. Please send me a copy of While You Wait for Your Prodigal. Me, my mom, and three younger siblings are currently waiting for a prodigal . . . our dad.

He has been gone for over eight months. We found out just a few weeks ago that he has been living with another woman. Please pray for him. Addy. [And then she said:] 

My mom listens to Revive Our Hearts.
P.S. Money is in envelope inside. I know it is not much. 

And she enclosed $25. We had said, “A gift of any amount if you’d like to receive this book.” 

Well, I found her mom’s name on our database. Robert and I called her together. I’m thinking, I don’t know if this mom knows that her daughter did this, so I had to handle it kind of carefully. In fact, the mother did not know anything about the letter or the $25. Her little girl was on the phone with her.

So I’m kind of going, “Addy, did your mom know that you wrote this letter?” 

Addy: No-o-o-o.

Nancy: Well, in God’s providence, the moment we called (it was at dinnertime), that precious woman had been for the last ten hours on a Zoom mediation meeting in relation to her marriage—estranged marriage—and child custody, and she was utterly spent!

She was exhausted, she was emotional, and she could not believe that God had sent this call at that moment. She was so deeply grateful! So we have here a picture of this mom and her three little girls and a little boy. There is Addy when she received the book that she had ordered, While You Wait for Your Prodigal.

I’ve been texting back and forth with this mom. In fact, I texted late last night, and she did back early this morning. It’s a long story, but just this one quote from her recent text: 

You don’t know how many times I’ve listened to Revive Our Heart, [while she’s been going through an extremely messed-up marriage situation] and have just wept and wept. It’s been exactly what I needed at the exact moment.

I hope you keep that image, that’s on the camera roll of my heart from this year: this precious mom and this little girl who could grow up bitter, angry, dysfunctional, rebellious, because of a dad who is not at all what God intended a parent or a dad or a man should be. 

But God is putting grace in her mom’s heart. It is the grace of God that is shaping this little girl’s life. I have been challenging myself and our staff (what a blessing they are!) that I want us to be humble, holy, happy servants of the Lord, and that I want us to live in harmony with each other and with the Lord. So that’s what we’re aspiring to. 

But let me just give you, in the last few minutes, a couple of short takeaways from my own personal study this year as I’ve been preparing The Wonder of the Wordteaching sessions. I want to say what a joy this has been. It’s hard work! It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I don’t know why I waited until sixty-six to start it!

But it’s also so joyful, because I get to spend my days, virtually every day, soaking in the Word and letting the Lord speak to me, and then “preparing meals” to share with women. You’ll hear more tomorrow about how those will be translated into languages and shared with women around the world!

A couple of things that have really spoken to my own heart about this ministry is as I have been in that study . . . We started in Genesi., I’m in the middle of 2 Samuel right now. But when we came through Deuteronomy and Joshua and Judges, some things were very apparent, and that’s the importance of doing a good hand-off!

God showed Moses that Joshua was to be his successor. God made that very clear, and Moses prepared the way, and Joshua had been being prepared for many years. You see a really good hand-off there. 

But what happened after Joshua? Yeah, what about Judges!? There was no king; every man did what was right in his own eyes. It was bedlam; it was chaos! Now, this is all in God’s providence. He was preparing for the monarchy, for the kingship . . . and all of this was preparing for King Jesus.

So, this wasn’t a mistake on God’s part. God uses even the foolishness and the wrath of men, ultimately, to praise Him. But as I’ve been living in those passages, I’ve been realizing the importance of hand-off from one generation to the next.

You may remember in the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, the U.S. men’s 4x100 meter relay team. These were amazing runners! The first runner botched the handoff to the second one. The second one almost had to, like, come to a stop in order to accept the baton.

And by the time he received it, the U.S. team was out of position, and placed dead last in that race! And then, to add insult to injury, that team was later disqualified because that exchange took place outside of the approved hand-off zone. It was a mess all the way around!

 

I just remember hearing them talk about that, and I was saying, “Oh, Lord, don’t let us botch the handoff!” We cannot botch the handoff! It’s true for our ministry. It’s true as one generation of believers to another. It’s true in our churches. It’s true in our families. What a responsibility we have with whatever stewardship God has entrusted to us, to preserve it and protect it and pass it on to the next generation!

I received a text this morning from a friend who’s in the room today. It just encouraged me, because it’s what we’re talking about here. She said: 

Your ministry to me as a mom, wife, daughter, and grandmother has challenged me to teach the next generation! 

We’ve got to do it! We’ve got to equip women to do that. Dads need it, too, but our focus is on helping the women do that. 

We’re thinking of ourselves as carrying this mission, carrying this message, carrying this precious treasure in these clay pots that we are, but passing them on, passing that light on, passing that message on to your daughters, to your granddaughters, to their children, generation after generation—should the Lord tarry.

So this is something that the Revive Our Hearts Board and the Revive Our Hearts leadership team is being very intentional about . . . and has been for years. But, the older we all get, the more we have to think strategically about, “What does that handoff look like?”

We don’t have all the answers, and the Lord directs. We’re trusting Him, we’re walking with Him, but we’re also being proactive. We’re being proactive about pouring into the lives of younger women who love the Lord, love His Word, women who have a heart for ministry. They’re reaching out to us, and I’m often speaking into their lives.

This is not something you’ll see in our newsletters or hear on the broadcast. It’s behind the scenes in emails, on phone calls, in texts. Laura Gonzalez is doing this with the Latin team. We’re pouring into their lives, into their marriages, into the ministry God is giving them in their local churches and elsewhere.

We’re praying, we’re asking the Lord—trusting the Lord—to raise up and identify individuals to pick up the baton from our current leaders. And hopefully, that won’t all be exactly at the same time, but over these next several years, in His timing.

So, looking for people who not just have skills, but people who love Jesus, who love His Word, who love ministry, who are sold out to the gospel and walk in His grace. So that’s something you can be praying about with us, that the Lord will help us in this “season of handoff.” That’s something that has been highlighted to me in my study of the Word this year.

And then, kind of related to that, when I got to 1 Samuel, I came to this amazing woman, Hannah— desperate woman. “Handoffs” and “Hannah,” that’s how you’re going to remember this. (laughter) Hannah, a desperate woman who longed for a son! She wasn’t receiving the son. But the desperation led to prayer, to cry out to the Lord.

You know, when we’re not desperate, we’re not as motivated to pray, right? Desperation makes us pray, and that’s what happened to this woman. And in God’s time, a son was given to Hannah. But not for Hannah. A son for her to give back to God, who would grow to be a man, a prophet, that the nation desperately needed!

So God’s plan for Hannah wasn’t that she’d have all these little kiddos around her and just be this happy mom in her happy little house. No. This was going to be a life of sacrifice . . . and isn’t that what motherhood and fatherhood is all about? It’s God entrusting a gift for a time that then you pass on to God’s purposes and His use.

As I think about Hannah and the power of a praying woman and how women today are so powerful, so influential . . . You see this in the recent election season and the power of women who are fervent about what they believe, the public power of these masses of women. One call for a political candidate broke Zoom with one hundred sixty thousand women. I listened to most of that Zoom call. They were strident, and they were angry, and they were belligerent. I’m going, “Oh Lord, these are powerful women!”

And then you see little Hannah. Who was really powerful? It’s a woman in her home, living with disappointment and unmet expectations, and getting to know God and then receiving, in God’s time, a gift—this praying woman. 

Would you believe she raised a praying son? You see, Samuel’s a praying man all through the Scripture. But she didn’t really get to raise him; she only had him until he was weaned. He might have been age three—five at the most in that culture. 

But she poured something into that child’s life that when she took him to the temple to live in a wicked, corrupt environment, he was a man of God. He was a man of prayer. That’s what he grew up to become, because of a praying mom and her influence.

Do you wonder who has the real power in the world, in our nation today? I think they are probably some women whose names will never be in our history books, they’ll never be on the news. But in the annals of heaven, in the history books of records of heaven, it’s their names. They’re the ones who are bombarding heaven, crying out to the Lord, surrendering, saying, “Lord, I give You my disappointments. I give you my longings. I’m willing to give You my children, everything!” Those are the women that God uses in many cases to shape history! Those are the women we want to be raising!

Well, I’ve gone past my time. I just want to give you one word of encouragement, again from my reading and study this year. It’s not a snapshot, but it’s a word of encouragement for you. Speaking of 1 Samuel and Samuel, he was such a man of God; he was a revival man.

In 1 Samuel 7, you read about a revival at a place called Mizpah. The people had been backslidden and walking away from God for years. It was a desperate situation! But then, it says the people began to long for God. Samuel was ready. He knew what to do. He called the people to get rid of their idols, to confess their sin. He called a gathering. 

Well, the Philistines heard about the gathering and they thought, “This is our time to strike!” So, all these people are repenting, and here comes the opposing army. Isn’t it just like the devil, while there’s a great work of God going on, he’s going to send in his forces to attack it?

And so, the people are repenting and getting rid of their idols, but now they’re terrified because here come the Philistines! They cried out to Samuel and they said, “Pray for us!” And so 1 Samuel says he cried to the Lord on behalf of Israel, and the Lord answered him, supernaturally defeating the enemy. It’s an amazing story! Go back and read it in 1 Samuel chapter 7. 

But then, afterward, Samuel took a stone, and he set it upright between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer. It’s a word that means “stone of help”—a stone with a name, a monument, a memorial. And he explained, “The Lord has helped us to this point.” 

And always, for generations to come, that monument would be there, and their children would ask them, “What’s that about?” 

“Well, that’s where the Lord helped us! He’s helped us to this point.” 

It would always be a reminder for one generation to tell the next of what God had done, how He had been so faithful and good and kind to His people, how He had come to their rescue! To this point the Lord had helped them; He had never failed. And then when the people got in trouble later on, they could look at that stone and they could remember: “God never failed us to this point. He’s been our Helper! He’s going to be faithful to us now. He’s going to help us now!”

God had promised to help them whenever they turned to Him. Again and again He kept His promises! A woman wrote me recently after she heard me teach on this, and she said, “We actually have an Ebenezer.”

She had one in her home and one outside her home from some construction work. You can see that their driveway or porch or something was torn up this year, so she piled up those stones and made an Ebenezer. She sent that photo to me.

But as we think about that word and the promises of God, wherever you may be today, we need those Ebenezers reminding us, “Yes, the Lord has helped us to this point. He has been faithful. He’s been merciful. We praise Him. But we’re in trouble now, again, so what do we do!?” We praise Him, because we remember He has helped us to this point. He is our Ebenezer! And He will help us in our present difficulty. 

“Well, what about all the difficulties to come? What if an election goes this way? What if my boss does this? What if our church does that?”

We remember that God’s mercies, His help, His faithfulness has been fresh and new every morning. He will not fail to help us now, and He will not fail to help us in the future in whatever difficulties we may encounter, all the way home!

God’s Word is so precious! It is so rich. It is so current. It gives us exactly what we need for every day, for every moment, for every circumstance, for every issue in our lives! 

Dannah: Thank you, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, for sharing some of what you’ve been meditating on recently and some of those “snapshots” from the camera roll of your heart. We’re so thankful for the ways God is using Revive Our Hearts, both generationally and globally!

If you’ve ever given to support this ministry, you’ve played a part in reaching women all around the world with the message of freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. Thank you so much! As you probably know, December is a crucial month for us at Revive Our Hearts. That's because 44 percent of the donations we receive in a year come in the month of December.

Now, some friends of our ministry want to give you an incentive to make a donation, so they’ve committed to match all December donations, dollar for dollar, up to a total of two million dollars. That means if you give fifty dollars, they’ll match it with another fifty dollars. One hundred dollars becomes two hundred dollars, and so on. 

So, would you pray about what the Lord would have you give, and then contact us with your donation. You’ll help us to be set up in a healthy place financially for 2025! You can give online through ReviveOurHearts.com, or by calling us at this number: 1-800-569-5959. And again, thank you so much!

Well, in the midst of the Christmas season chaos, it’s easy to lose the wonder of what it’s really all about. Tomorrow, Nancy will help us focus on our wonderful Savior, Jesus as she looks at a famous Old Testament prophecy. Join us for that on Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness and fruitfulness in Christ!

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.