Sarah, Meet Mercy

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: A young woman named Sarah was living in Ohio. She had just gotten out of an unhealthy dating relationship.

Sarah: I had a boyfriend at one point that I broke up with because of emotional abuse, physical abuse, psychological abuse. A few months following, he decided to take his life. A lot of people within the community were attacking me and saying, “This is your fault.”

I was like, “I’m not wanted here; I want to get out.” So, that was hard.

Nancy: Sarah tried to escape one painful relationship by getting into another one. She started dating a man who was divorced with children. She thought they should move to Minnesota so this man could be closer to his kids. But she also thought that moving would help her escape the pain of her past relationship.

Sarah: It caused an upset because he wasn't on the same page with it. He wanted to stay and work in Ohio, and I don’t even know why. I was running away from things in Ohio, trauma, things that had happened. I just wanted to get out so that was my way, like, “Let’s go!”

Nancy: Sarah and her boyfriend got engaged and moved to Minnesota, but the new relationship in the new location didn’t make Sarah’s life any better.

Sarah: You think you’re going to be happy. You get engaged; you’re getting ready to get married and things are going to be better, but I wasn’t happy in life. I thought this was going to make me happy, and it got worse.

We would argue and fight. His ex-wife was very controlling and jealous, so that put a lot of weight on our relationship as well. I just kept wondering, When is this going to get better? When am I going to be happy? I just kept wondering why I wasn’t happy.

I just felt like something needed to change. I just said, “God, if You’re real, You need to reveal Yourself to me, because I just can’t do this anymore!”

Dannah Gresh: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Adorned, for Friday, May 27, 2022. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Nancy: It may surprise you to hear me say this, but I’m actually an introvert. So when I’m at church or in other group gatherings, sometimes it’s tempting to just slip into my seat and then slip out as soon as possible after the meeting is over, hoping to avoid getting into conversations. Maybe you can relate to that, too. 

But over the years I’ve come to realize how important it is to be willing to engage intentionally with the people that God places around me. And I want to testify to God’s glory, that even introverts like me can reach out to people through the power of His Holy Spirit.

In fact, the Lord has given me what I call an “aisle ministry” at church. And I have found such joy through being attentive to those around me (whether they’re people I know well or sometimes complete strangers), looking for opportunities to find out what’s on their heart, what they may be going through, and taking time to encourage and pray with them.

All this month on Revive Our Hearts, we’ve been exploring the theme: One Woman Can Make a Difference, and that’s important to remember at church—not just to wait for others to reach out to us, but to reach out to them, to get to know people, to find out what they need and share life with them. It really can make a huge difference.

Dannah’s about to share a story that may change the way you look at new people at church. We’ll hear how God used one woman to make a big difference in the life of a hurting young woman.

Dannah: We’ve already met one character in this story, Sarah. To say there was pain in her life would be an understatement. Her abusive ex-boyfriend took his own life. She tried to escape her pain by getting into another unhealthy relationship and moving to a new state. 

We’re going to get back to Sarah in a minute, but first let me introduce you to the other main character in this story. Her name is Mercy.

Mercy: My parents actually just had gone to a Bible study shortly after they met, and someone introduced them to Jesus. So they’re first-generation Christians. Growing up, they introduced me to Jesus.

But it was inconsistent. They didn’t have somebody come alongside them and share life with them, to show them what living for God looked like. When I was older, I just became hungrier and thirstier, and I surrendered my life fully to the Lord when I was reading through Titus.

I came across Titus 2, and it said, “Older women . . . train the younger women,” and it said, “love your husband, love your children, be chaste, pure . . .” and then all the way to where it said, “. . . so that the Word of God will not be blasphemed.” (2:3–5 paraphrased)

And I just thought, Oh, my goodness! Well, Lord, I do not want to blaspheme You, so show me how to do this. I went back to Titus 2 where it had said, “Older woman train the younger woman.” I said, “Okay, so there it is. I need to ask an older woman to learn from.” 

I just wanted to learn as much as possible, so I entered into a relationship with a woman. She said, “Yes.” I didn’t think she would; I was so nervous to ask! But I learned more from her than I did when I was walking through things trying to figure it out on my own. 

She was so filled with grace and love, and so she just modeled that to me!

Susan Hunt reading Psalm 145: “One generation shall commend your works to [the next generation], and shall declare your mighty acts.” This generational principle is repeated throughout the Old Testament and is echoed in Paul’s letter when he says that older women are to teach the younger women.

Mercy: And so, I was doing dishes one day, I heard Susan Hunt speaking on the radio through Revive Our Hearts. And she said, “Older women, you need to invest into younger women’s lives, and younger women, you need to reach out to older women with more life experience so that they can help you and encourage you and equip you to live for God’s glory.”

Susan: The local church is where we know each others’ stories. It’s where we hear sound doctrine, so we learn how to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. It’s where we are knit together in love.

Mercy: And I said, “Yes! That’s it! I need to learn more!” So I went on the Internet; it led me to the Adorned conference through Revive Our Hearts, where I got to hear Susan Hunt’s whole message where she spoke about, “Don’t give up that modeling career” (so cute!), and I was left in tears.

That message burned inside my chest and something came alive. I just said, “This is it!” So I reached out to my pastor’s wife, who’s a really close, great friend, and she just walked me through it. I said, “Hey! I want to have a Bible study.”

And she was like, “Oh.” She’s very reserved and balanced—the very opposite of me! She said, “What would that look like?” 

I said, “I dunno, but it’s about women sharing life with younger women and encouraging them and equipping them to live for God’s glory.” And there’s this book called Adorned Nancy DeMoss [Wolgemuth] wrote it. It’s so awesome, so it’s going to be great!” 

She said, “Oh, how long is that going to run for?” 

I said, “I don’t know; it could go on forever!”

And then she said, “Okay, well there should be a start time and a stop time so women know what to expect.” She just walked me through how to have a Bible study. It was the scariest thing I have ever done!

All these older women came, silver-haired saints, and what happened was amazing! The older women came alive! That was the calling that the Lord gave me, because when I saw the veil lift and when I saw God’s plan, they got it! I was like, “I want to do this for the rest of my life!”

Dannah: While God was calling Mercy to invest in other women, Sarah was going through some very hard things. Do you remember where we left Sarah?

Sarah: I just felt like something needed to change, and I just said, “God, if You’re real, You need to reveal Yourself to me, because I can’t do this anymore!” 

Dannah: So, Sarah and her fiancé visited a number of churches, but to Sarah, it just seemed like they wanted something out of her.

Sarah: So I kind of gave up on the fact that God was in Minnesota. I was like, “God’s not in Minnesota! So, I don’t know what You want me to do, God.” My mom sent me a link to this church, and my fiancé and I went. It was very welcoming the first Sunday.

People came up and welcomed us and said, “Hi, how are you? Are you new?” It just felt very warm and welcoming.

Dannah: And Sarah was struck by the truth of God’s Word during that sermon.

Sarah: I wanted more! Then the following Sunday we came back.

Mercy: My father-in-law came over and said, “Mercy, there is a couple here, and the young man is from near where you grew up.” 

So I said, “Okay, Let’s meet them.” 

So we started talking about similar things in that area, and then it was as if the Lord physically turned my gaze upon Sarah. 

I said, “You’re new here, who are you? Tell me about yourself.”

I love God so much, and what He did was, He showed me His love for Sarah in that moment. All I could do was say “yes” to partnering with Him to display that love to her in any way that I could. And so my prayer was, “Lord, show me how to love her.”

Sarah: I was like, “Who . . . is . . . this . . .” (laughter)

Mercy: She was like a little girl, it was like I saw a little girl, even though she was a grown woman. It was like this little girl was standing there in a foreign land, and she didn’t know anyone. Through questions I found out that she had no family here, that she had moved here from Ohio.

I remember moving to central Minnesota and having no family here. I remember having no sisters in Christ at all. And so, it was just seeing a “little girl” hungry and wanting to know her Father. Wow! Like, “I get to be a part of that!?” I kept asking Him how to love her.

Sarah: And, from that moment on, a beautiful relationship developed. She continued to seek after me and get to know who I was. She just poured God’s love, grace, and mercy into my life. Over the next year-and-a-half, she loved me into God’s arms!

Dannah: But that year-and-a-half process wasn’t easy. Not long after Sarah and Mercy met, the COVID pandemic made it hard to meet in person.

Sarah: My pastor’s wife, my good friend, again, is just sound and a real voice of reason. She had the idea to use an YouVersion Bible app to have the women come together in a Bible study and be able to comment and see each other. Sarah was one of those women.

I don’t know what the Bible study was, but she had written, “I want so badly to learn how to be a godly woman!” When I saw that, I thought, Well, how is she going to do that with COVID, when we’re not meeting together? 

So the Lord ignited something in my heart again. My other friend had reached out and said, “Mercy, a bonfire would be really great at your house sometime because it’s all outdoors.” It was strange; what do we do in this COVID situation? It was foreign to us.

I just prayed, and the Lord brought six women to mind. Sarah was one of them. I saved this text because this day was just so fabulous. I texted, “Sarah, would you like to come over to my house this evening for a bonfire? Just a few women are getting together to fellowship.”

Sarah: I was just like ecstatic that someone was inviting me!

Mercy: And she texted back, “Yes!” And it was the cutest thing ever, because when she showed up (she was the first one there), she hopped out of the car, and she had her Bible. So this girl was hungry, she was so hungry!—not only for the Word of God, but for fellowship and community.

Sarah: It was a group of women that were older than I was, and they all had children. But it was just so beautiful to sit around the fire and listen to them talk about how they raised their children and the things that they talked about and what concerned them for their children and their husbands.

Mercy: And so from that moment on, every single week, we had a bonfire, and we gathered together. At the very end we would pray. We would just tap into what everyone’s prayer request was. We’d pray for the country, and we’d pray for the situation in our community, and how to reach into people’s homes to be able to share the love of God. We prayed about continuing to gather together, even though the world was saying, “Separate, isolate!” The Lord just bonded Sarah and I from that moment on.

Sarah: What stood out to me the most was the wisdom, the knowledge, and just the depth of Christ that these women had. It’s something that I desired to have more of—to know Christ deeper, to know Scripture deeper, and to have that as my safety belt in life, as well.

These women are so full of wisdom and knowledge and experience in life, and I want to be a part of that! That blossomed into so many amazing relationships, because I was then able to be comfortable enough to share my testimony with them.

Mercy: She wrote out her testimony; she said quietly, “Do you guys want to hear my testimony?” We were like, “Yes!” It just gave us such a fervor to remember that passion of just being hungry for the first time for the Lord and not being able to get enough!

Sarah: They were able to hear a lot of the things that I had gone through in life, and then they were able to encourage me specifically through those. I opened up and started sharing so much more with them.

Dannah: In 2020, when so many people were struggling with fear and dealing with questions of life and death, Sarah came to discover true life in Christ! She came to genuine faith in Him. It was the kind of love she’d been searching for all her life.

Sarah: Jesus is nothing like the boyfriends that I’ve had in my life. Jesus is kind and loving and gentle and soft, passionate. There’s just true, genuine love in the relationship with Jesus; whereas, all of these other relationships were just trying to fill a void of what I really needed in life . . . and that was Jesus!

It just boggles my mind how He gave His life for us. I’m like, “Who am I that You want to give Your life for me, and that You love me, and that You’ve forgiven me, that I’m a new creation through You?” Those are just things that I still am trying to wrap my mind around That’s nothing that any man, human, could make you feel by any means. 

Dannah: As Sarah’s love for Jesus grew, she wanted to make changes that would glorify Him . . . and that had a big effect on Sarah’s fiancé.

Sarah: Honestly, he wasn't that happy about it. He was like, “What’s changing?” I ended up saying he needed to move out, because I felt convicted that we were living together. That upset him. He was like, “Well, how could you just kick me to the streets? I have nowhere to go. I can’t afford to live on my own.”

I was actually kind of taking care of him and paying for the house and things like that. So, that was a really hard thing for me to do. I felt bad about telling him he needed to move out, but I knew that was the right thing to do.

Dannah: Sarah and her fiancé parted ways. That was a source of pain, but in the middle of that momentary suffering, Sarah experienced a deep down joy in the Lord. A verse in Romans describes how she felt.

Sarah: Yes, it’s Romans 5:3 which says, “We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” (vv. 3–5 ESV)

Dannah: Sarah kept growing in her faith, thanks to Mercy’s family, this church family, and even this program. 

Sarah: Through Mercy and the women I was meeting with at the bonfire, one of the gal’s names was Elizabeth. She told me about the Revive Our Hearts podcast, and that I should listen to it. In that way I was directed to listening to those life-giving podcasts, and that’s where I got my first taste of Revive Our Hearts.

Dannah: We already heard how the Lord put a passion on Mercy’s heart to teach younger women, and the Lord put a similar burden on Sarah’s heart. As she learned biblical concepts, she wanted to pass them on as well.

Mercy: She just started loving the young girls at our church, and it is amazing! She’s twenty-four years old, and we have this cusp of junior highers—like turning thirteen to fourteen—just booming at our church. The Lord created this bridge from Sarah to these girls!

Sarah: That was a pivotal point that I could play in their lives, encouraging them in a way that they wouldn’t make the same mistakes that I made—being able to pour life into and encourage them was a blessing and an opportunity only God could have given me.

Mercy: And you have us older women, and then silver-haired saints, and we’re sharing life. I’m sharing life with Sarah. These junior highers just want someone a little closer to their age to glean from, and the Lord created that in and through Sarah because she said “yes” to God.

Susan Hunt said that on Wednesdays she just prays for the women of the nation to rise up and grab hold of God’s plan. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that she prayed for me! I was one of those women that the Lord raised up.

And knowing this plan, I can now look back and see my mom didn’t have anyone that came alongside her and showed her how to love her husband and children well either. And so, the Lord redeems our failures and He restores our circumstances. My mom has a wonderful passion for the Lord now.

I just want to say, “Invest, say ‘yes’ to the Lord.” He’s placing opportunities in front of you, but if you see God’s plan, you’ll start to see those opportunities. “Oh, here’s an opportunity! Yes, I will partner with You to display Your love to her.”

Nancy: One woman really can make a difference. That’s been our theme all this month here on Revive Our Hearts. The story we’ve just heard illustrates that theme so beautifully. 

Let’s just think back: one woman—Susan Hunt—made a difference when she spoke on the Revive Our Hearts program about mentoring. That had a huge effect on Mercy. Then Mercy made a huge difference by investing in Sarah’s life. And now Sarah is making a difference in the lives of teenagers.

And who knows how many more ripples will be felt as these women continue to share their lives with others? You can make a difference, too. And if you’ve supported Revive Our Hearts over the years, you’ve helped make it possible for Mercy to hear that message from Susan Hunt.

You’ve also helped make it possible for Sarah to listen to Revive Our Hearts day by day as she grows in her faith. And you’ve helped make it possible for Revive Our Hearts to host conferences like Revive ’21. Mercy and Sarah came to that conference together, and that’s where our team had the chance to interview them.

Sarah: I’m here because I just want to connect more with other women. I want to be poured into by other women and just to see what God is doing through many people and in their lives as well. And it’s just beautiful to see how many women want the same thing, and how God orchestrates conversation and running into people. It’s just a beautiful place to be here! I think I’m just here because God wants me to be here.

Nancy: When you support Revive Our Hearts, you help women like Mercy learn how to invest in other women more effectively.

Mercy: There’s a Revive Our Hearts Facebook leadership group. All you have to do is answer a couple of questions: “What is your position at your church?” Which was also pretty funny, because my answer was: “Volunteer . . . ministering . . . to . . . women.” And so, that was enough to get me in.

I said, “I’m not a leader, Lord, I don’t lead women’s ministry. But if this is something I can glean from, I’ll take any crumb that falls from the table!” So I did the fill-out thing, and I joined the leadership group, and they have been helping me walk through this. The resources seem limitless!

Nancy: And when you support Revive Our Hearts, you help us provide resources such as books and Bible studies and videos to leaders like Mercy.

Mercy: Why have I had this Revive Our Hearts all to myself!? I need to start sharing this with the women in my church, and I need to start asking God what He will do through it for the women.

Nancy: Would you help make a difference in the lives of women like Mercy and Sarah—and others just like them all around the world? This coming Tuesday will be the end of our fiscal year. That’s when we bring one set of accounting books to a close, and we get ready for the year ahead.

We’re asking the Lord to help us end this year in a healthy position. That way, this program, conferences, books, Bible studies, leadership training can all continue and even expand to reach more women in other parts of the world.

We’ve been asking the Lord to provide at least $775,000 dollars during this important month. I’m so thankful for His provision to this point and for every person who has had a part in helping us get this far. But we’ve still got quite a ways to go, so would you ask the Lord how He would want you to be involved? Your prayers, your support can make a difference, and that’s why we’d love to hear from you.

When you make a donation of any size, we want to say thank you by sending you a booklet our team has produced called (Un)remarkable. It’s the stories of ten ordinary women who impacted their world for Christ!

To make a donation to help us with this fiscal year end need, visit us at ReviveOurHearts.com, or give us a call at 1-800-569-5959. Thank you so much for trusting the Lord with us to meet this entire need, and perhaps even beyond.

Now sometimes when I’m facing a tough situation, it’s easy for me to get discouraged and feel like giving up. But when that happens, I sometimes think of a friend of mine. When I see her face in my mind, I know I can keep going! 

Find out who this friend is and be encouraged to persevere Monday on Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants to help you experience greater freedom, fullness and fruitfulness in Christ!