Woman Evolve with Sarah Jakes Roberts - Fact, Impact & Faith

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

This one is for the woman who's ready to tell the truth and still choose hope. Sarah Jakes Roberts sits down with Lysa TerKeurst to unpack the difference between privacy and secrecy, how to hold both therapy and theology, and why Jesus invites us to feel our feelings and still surrender. They get real about the "fact and impact" of trauma, forgiveness as God's prescription, boundaries that protect your healing, and what it takes to open your heart again after the death of a marriage. They even walk through Mark 14, reframe "God hates divorce," and talk self-forgiveness, codependency, and finding someone who has "done the work." Lysa also shares about her new book, Surviving an unwanted divorce, releasing November 11. Tap in for wisdom, language for your pain, and the faith to move forward. Watch the video version on the Woman Evolve TV App.

If I am the only spiritual lead in this house for a year, for and forever, I don't know what the plan is. Who will I have to be in order to lead this baby, not just into being a good human, but into the presence of God? Forgiveness is actually God's prescription for the human heart to heal. And so it's crucial from a spiritual standpoint and a physical standpoint that we tend well to the impact emotional traumas are having on us. If you're new to the Woman Evolve podcast, I'm about to do something that is going to shock you. But that's all right. Hold your horses. Things are going to be okay.

But there's a song on my heart this afternoon, and I want to share it with you morning. Whenever you're listening to it, stay focused. Let's not get bogged down in details. It's from a soundtrack from a movie called Kingdomcom. I saw it when I was a little one. And it is the only way that I can accurately express the way that I am currently feeling, as it relates to the ways of this world, okay? I've been up, I've been down,

I've been looking for some joy to come around, I've been waiting for some sunshine, been looking for a joy that I could call mine, and I've cried. It's really, don't let my vocals stand in the way of what's happening here, okay? I think that song was it by So I'm going to it on you

Was that Jill Scott? I think it was by Jill Scott Don't worry about it I'm going to find it And then I will sing it When I know all of the lyrics But the point is that's how I've been feeling One minute I'm up

It is by Jill Scott I'm down Because you know the world The world is a roller coaster And we are not properly strapped in The world is a roller coaster, and it feels like that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you're about to make the big drop. That's what we're living with. And it's part of the reason why I preached the message that you listened to last week is because I just feel that big drop.

Right now, the government is shut down in the U.S. of A. Israel and Gaza have a ceasefire that's not a ceasefire. artificial intelligence is radically changing global and economic and education and employment opportunities around the world. And yet right now in this moment, the sun is out and I'm going to go pick my children up from school and from moment to moment, I just am allowing myself to feel what I feel. And so I've been up, I've been down. Can you relate? I don't know where this message is finding you in the midst of all of the things that are making headlines and the things that will never

make the news. But I just want you to know that I truly, honestly, believe that God's strategy will prove itself clear in time. But while we are waiting to see God's plan, we have an opportunity to invite the Holy Spirit into our wonder and our uncertainty. And I just want to remind you that no more than you are just someone who is a doer, doer, and producer, that God is not just a producer, that there is an opportunity for you to experience the presence of God. while also navigating the chaos of the world. How do I experience the presence of God? One, I come to him with faith that he is.

And because I recognize that he is, I have to understand who he is. He is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. He causes all things to work together. That he is the intricate architect of the world that we currently exist in. that he is all knowing and ever present. I believe that about God, that God can heal, that God can deliver, that God can restore. I believe that about God. And I believe that through Jesus, I also have access to the presence of God.

And because I have access to the presence of God, sometimes I just want to know what you know. You know how, if you're an adult and you were fortunate enough to have healthy relationships with your parents. Sometimes you just want to go home or your big mama or your friends or that one teacher. There was just something about being in their presence that made the world feel a little more safe. That's what can happen when we're in the presence of God. And I am learning the art of experience. My husband preached a message and it was called Showdown etiquette, I believe. And I am mastering the art of being in the presence of God while navigating the realities of the world. And it is requiring me to ground myself, to be still,

to be present, to check in with myself, and to go a little bit slower. So maybe that's what our intro to the podcast is all about right now. It is an invitation to go slower, to resist the urge to continue moving at a pace that is familiar, and instead to allow yourself to breathe deeply, to exhale slowly, to check in with yourself in the world around you, and to allow yourself to look around for moments of joy and to allow yourself your heart to break in the moments of trial and tribulation and to believe that this two shall pass. So I guess that's you mind in my business.

Let me mind yours. Good morning, Ms. Sarah. My name is Jahida. I'm just calling a little nervous, little anxious about it, but I feel like God called me to your podcast. God called me to make this phone call. So I'm just kind of asking for some advice when it comes to that season of singleness. I was in a relationship for four years with my daughter's father, my daughter's four years old, and overcoming a crazy situation with me being homeless with just.

just me and my daughter and traveling and my daughter catching these sicknesses and diseases and stuff like that and I have no guidance or help during that season. And then finally overcoming my homelessness, I then found out that my baby's father was unfaithful and I have no idea the duration of it or was it the beginning, was it just recent? I have no idea. given that this did start last year, I am still going through pain and not knowing really how to heal from it in order for me to move on and have potential hope that somebody else could come. And I want this person to be a God-fearing man and someone that can motivate me and my daughter

and lead the family. Like, you know, just things like that I've just been thinking about lately. But I do know that there's healing that needs to be started before I even get to that stage of my life. So I'm just asking for advice when it comes to that season of singleness. Thank you. Bye. Thank you so much for sharing this with me. I have quite literally been exactly where you are down to having to experience single motherhood.

and I know that heartbreak and that devastation. It's not just the loss of a person. It's a loss of a family, an idea of what family looks like. It is the loss of hope. And it's a loss of yourself because you pour and invest so much of yourself into creating this vision, creating this family. And so one, I think you have to allow yourself to experience this disappointment. It's real. It's hard and it's heavy.

and life not going the way that you anticipated or wanted is challenging for anyone to experience, especially when you're having to navigate a little person who is in the audience of this show that you're not the only one who's producing. And so you can't control other people's roles in their lines, and it's a lot. So I hope that just hearing that alone helps you to understand, like, feeling disappointment, feeling overwhelmed by this is not uncommon and abnormal and it can take some time to recover from this. I also just want to offer to you since you're asking for my advice and you said you know that there's some healing that needs to take place is that you have to

take it day by day. When I got divorced, I was thinking less about who I wanted to be in my life next and more about me defining family for myself and my children. A lot of times we buy into this idea that family has to look a certain way. And so we find ourselves scrambling to find people who can feel the roles of how we have to find what we believe family needs to look like. Instead, a more challenging yet rewarding and fulfilling question that you should consider asking yourself, is God, what does family look like with it just being me and her? And when I tell you, man, I made, like, we did family photos. Like, we didn't wait to be a family once we found, you know, my husband.

We weren't a family without him, you know. like we're still going to have family dinners. We still took family road trips and family vacations. Like there were still cookies waiting on them. You have to dream of a life that has the components that are currently available to you. What type of healing? What type of resiliency? What type of spiritual depth? If I am the only spiritual lead in this house for the next six months, for a year, for forever, I don't know what the plan is, who will I have to be in order to lead this baby, not just into being a good human, but into the presence of God. And asking yourself, these types of questions produce a maturity and a sense of ownership in your life that doesn't put your life on pause while you're waiting

on someone else. And because you begin to create that environment, you become protective over it. So I have moved from a posture of waiting for someone to come in and feel this role. And I have created this environment that I'm protective over. So I don't let just anybody come in here and change the atmosphere or to lead my child in a way that doesn't biblically align with what we have established. And so this is an opportunity for you to grieve and to dream of a life that has what is available. to you now, not just what could be available. That is the hard advice that I can give you about this season. I'm going to say to you would have said everybody to take it to the Lord in prayer, test it, kick the tires on it. But that would be my advice to you. And then you get to examine,

you know, how did this relationship get off track? Was there a role that I played in it? and is there something that I would do differently? And what do I want to model an example as it relates to relationships moving forward? So I am really curious to hear your feedback on what you think about this advice, whether or not it resonates with you and how you feel like you can pick up the pieces from here. I will say in those low moments, right, where you're not taking care of the baby, you're not leading spiritually. and you're looking for what does joy and companionship look like as I navigate this new identity? I say to people who are going through a breakup all the time, distract yourself with yourself. If you've wanted to become a runner, you've wanted to cook, you've wanted to paint,

you allow yourself to cultivate intimacy with yourself by pursuing the things that you are curious about and to allow those curiosities to become a source of joy, but also companionship, become a companion with your curiosity while you wait on your companion, you know, as minutiaz would say, as you contend for your partner as well. Thank you again for trusting me with your heart in this season. I hope that this helps.

There are a few people who are quite literally goats as it relates to ministry that speaks to the heart of women. Lisa Turkhurst is one of them. When I first started sharing my story and sharing my life, her name was one I could not miss. It came up all of the time. And I was familiar with her work. I've listened to her podcast.

I've seen her books, but nothing could have prepared me for this conversation. You know, something happens when we're talking to someone who we feel like, you know, I'm not sure where all we will have synergy and alignment. And then you begin speaking with them and you realize, whoa, at the end of the day, we are all people here trying to navigate life. And we have the honor and privilege of being able to connect with other people whose lives look maybe completely different than our own. But whoa, maybe we are more like than we are different. She is a New York Times bestselling

author. She is the president of 31 ministries. Her latest book is surviving an unwanted divorce, which you may be thinking to yourself, girl, not married, not thinking about getting divorced, not having an unwanted divorce is not going to apply to me. Give it a listen anyway. Trust me when I tell you, Mama just drops, I'm sorry, Ms. Lisa, she just drops the bombs. It took all that I have not to like really be like, girl, take it easy on me. But, you, Yeah, we're minding the business of Lisa Turkers, and she was so generous with her story. She has spent decades helping people wrestle with heartbreak, loss, and the hard questions of faith. And she guides them towards the freedom to believe that even after loss, God still writes beautiful, beautiful stories.

So, wherever you are, driving, journaling, or just trying to make it through the day, take a deep breath, then press play. This conversation is bound to help you. And I love it so much because it aligns so much with the mind your business question. I just thought about that. Even though I know my girl's going through heartbreak, but let me tell you something. This is going to bless you. Let's get into it. I have to tell you, when I first started sharing my story and being invited to different places to speak

and then had the opportunity to write a book, there was one name that I heard all of the time, like the goat of women's ministry, and it was your name, Lisa Turkhurst. I am so honored, so grateful that I have the opportunity to speak with you. But I also just want to say thank you for creating this space where vulnerability and transparency and honesty can be a part of our relationship with God. I grew up in church and I feel like the way that I perceived what was happening in the room was almost as if people were coming into the room and everything was okay and everyone had it all together and that maybe there was just something wrong with me. And to see the work that you have done and how you've been so much of a trailblazer and having the hard,

honest conversations with God that liberates women and allows us to draw even closer to the Lord has been just one of the greatest privileges of my life to be able to witness it and glean from it. So thank you for this opportunity. Well, thank you so much. That really means a lot. I think I need a recording of that and I need to listen to it every morning. We will make sure that you get it. I am, I am, I really am, though. I'm blown away, by the way, you continue to, like, share your story. Sometimes they're your scars, maybe sometimes they're your wounds. And I'm just wondering, like, how did you come to a space where you felt like the most

effective path for ministry for you wasn't to do, as I say, but to instead show others what God was doing in your life? Well, I think it was twofold. One is because I realize when you approach someone, they don't care to know about your Jesus until they see the evidence of Jesus working in and through you in your life, the goodness of Jesus, the healing of Jesus. And so I was very passionate. If I'm going to show people the healing, they have to know what I've been healed from, you know.

The other thing is before anybody wants to be taught, they want to feel understood. And people can't relate to all of our successes, but they can relate to our tears. They can relate to the struggles that we've been through. And it's my opportunity, I think, as an author, to not only understand, but to also help other people have words for what they're going through and giving them an opportunity to glean from the way I phrase things or the way that I express things, because it helps them verbalize what they're also facing in their life. And so for all those reasons, I felt very called. It's just in my nature too. You know, the funny thing about me is I'm actually a pretty

private person, but I have a higher vulnerability threshold than some other people. But you'll notice there, I don't share a lot of details, you know, about the stories that I walk through, but I do share the context of the pain and the depth of hurt that I've faced. Okay, I'm writing that down. You have a high vulnerability threshold because I feel very similar. I did not know that what I was doing was vulnerable until people started telling me you're so vulnerable. And I thought to myself, if you thought that was something, you know, there are so many things that I didn't say that I couldn't believe that what I did say that I felt completely fine sharing was being considered vulnerable.

Well, I think it's always important. There's a big difference between privacy and secrecy. You know, secrecy turns people off because secrecy is withholding information for the purpose of hiding something and continuing some sort of bad behavior. Privacy is withholding information for the sake of healing and being able to move forward. And I think those two are very important to remember. So we can be private and withhold some of the details, which are not really going to help other people except they'll satisfy their curiosity. But we can be private withholding some details without being secret and hiding the reality of what we've gone through.

That's so good. I love that distinction. And I feel like it's very helpful for people who want to share their stories and they want to share different things that have happened to them or they're going through something right now. And they're like, man, I pray that God's going to get the glory out of this. And when he does, I want to share it. balancing, I think especially in this overly saturated social media era where we're telling so much of our story in our day-to-day lives, where is that limit? And I think being very clear about that is very important because sometimes we're seeing, I think, especially in younger generations, where they're sharing while they're in the middle of the processing and while they're in the middle of the healing and then they end up getting infections like an open wound because you've invited all of these different opinions and perspectives, and it makes it even more challenging to heal. That's right. The spotlight never healed anybody. The spotlight only exposes everything that's still

unhealed within us. Oh, so good. Okay, so I have to ask you, it's one thing to say, I'm going to share my story. I'm going to share where Jesus' healing power met me in my life for the sake of other people recognizing what Jesus can do in their lives. But you've also interwoven, therapy into this conversation. And, you know, I grew up in church and I'm going to say this because I feel like a lot of times in my culture in church, we say things like, well, black people don't talk about mental health and black people don't talk about this. And I'm like, well, we've only ever been black. So we don't really know if other people are doing it. But I think that you having therapy and theology makes me think that maybe this is a conversation that no one's

really having about mental health and that we all need advocates in our, our different spaces to help us really understand what's happening underneath the surface. Yeah, so one of the things that I came to recognize in therapy is that every trauma we face is both the fact of what happened and the impact, which is the effect that it had on us, you know, what it cost us, what we now, how we're now changed because of what we faced. And so I think combining therapy and theology helps us tend well. to both, the fact and the impact. For example, with forgiveness, you know, you bring up a topic on forgiveness and people in the church will say forgive immediately. People in the therapy world

will say, no, you need to take time to process what you've been through, you know, before you just jump into forgiveness. But see, combining therapy and theology helps us see, we can forgive, we can be obedient to God and forgive the fact of what happened in a moment in time. But there's also grace and space to incorporate therapy in that so that we can then do the second part of forgiveness because if trauma is two parts, fact, and impact, then forgiveness has to be two parts, fact and impact. So where therapy comes in is forgiving for the impact, which could last a very long time, you know, throughout the course of your life.

That's not you delaying forgiveness because once you forgive for the fact of what happened, you've been obedient to God. But again, therapy allows you to then process the impact so you can walk toward forgiveness and that as well. Oh, that's so good. Man, that makes me, I don't know exactly where I want to spring from here because I'm thinking about my own life and circumstances and situations where I had the fact of something and then the impact of something.

And I think my teen pregnancy is probably a prime example. That was the fact of something that happened in my life. But then there was residual impact that had nothing. to do with the pregnancy, had nothing to do with my amazing son, and everything to do with trying to forgive myself, trying to understand how I show up in the world with this reality. And that impact actually led me into relationships that were harmful and damaging to me. So when we start talking about relationships and the choices that are made in relationships and how unprocessed trauma can often lead us to make relationship choices that aren't necessarily

a reflection of maybe what God would have chosen for us or what we're. we would have chosen if we were in our most healed state. I think that we bring to the table probably a can of worms that I know it's pretty nuanced. But I'm curious, when you talked about fact and impact, especially as it relates to relationship choices, you've got this new book about surviving an unwanted divorce. And I'm wondering, how does that fact and impact play into this reality that I've got this divorce, or maybe we'll go before the divorce. Maybe I'm in this situation in my marriage and relationship, and I don't know what to do with this fact. Well, it's really important that we understand fact and impact. So let's take fact first. First, in order to fully

acknowledge the facts, we have to be committed to reality. And that sounds pretty obvious. but what can easily happen, especially if you're in a relationship where there's abuse of any kind. You know, it can be verbal abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, mental abuse. I mean, there's spiritual abuse. There's a lot of different kinds of abuse. And I don't throw that word around lightly. When I say that, I mean, you are being hurt and harmed, being put in harm's way, either emotionally, physically, sexually, financially, whatever it is, but you are being put in harm's way by someone who is supposed to be seeking your highest good. So in the context of a marriage, you know, when we deal with facts, for me, I won't put this on anybody else, but for me, being in the church, I was so used to denying

the harsh facts because I wanted to be a good wife. I wanted to believe the best. I wanted to only speak kind, positive words. And to some extent, I felt like being a good wife required me to also keep secrets that seemed small at first, but then they spun out of control and got very, very big. And it wasn't that I thought I was keeping secrets. I thought I was honoring my husband. That's what I thought I was doing. But you see, I had to first come to face the reality of what I'm facing and stop lying to

myself so that I can then get other people around me to help me unpack and better understand what I'm really facing. You know, mental help is a commitment to reality at all costs. That means that it's really hard to be honest with ourselves. It's really hard sometimes when we've spent our lives helping cover up or helping someone, you know, minimizing their bad and maximizing the little scraps of love they give us. You know, it can all get so upside down sometimes. So, fact is really important. What is reality? Acknowledging that to myself and then getting other people, not the whole world involved, but getting some trusted, wise people around me to help me process what it is that I'm really facing. There's a big difference between having difficulties in your

marriage. We all have difficult relationships, right? But there's a big difference between a difficult marriage and a destructive marriage. My friend Leslie Burnick taught me that. And so when you're facing a destructive marriage, the facts are going to be important because typically the person who is hurting you. Maybe it's your spouse, maybe if it's in a marriage relationship, if it's your spouse that is hurting you, you have to be able to acknowledge that and get other people involved. Don't go at it alone. And so I think that's really important for the fact. Now, let's think about the impact. Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

because hold on, hold on girl, hold on girl. We got questions. Okay. I need to take a pause and dig into having a faith relationship, a relationship with Jesus, a relationship with our honesty and truth that doesn't require us to fake it until we make it. Like, I feel like we need to pause there for a moment because there is a. a perception that if I am honest about the facts, then I don't have faith. You know, I've heard so many women override the facts because they have faith for whatever it is they're hoping for. And so they choose to stay anchored in the faith without facing the facts. And that's not to say that you still can't have faith for a particular outcome.

But I feel like what you're saying is that we at least have to start with the reality of where we are so that we recognize, you know, what that faith journey can look like when there's such a gap between maybe where the fact is and where the faith is. So we've got fact and impact, but for a minute, I need to talk about fact and faith and the juxtaposition there. Absolutely. Well, to do that, Sarah, let's go to Mark chapter 14. And I believe it's starting in around verse 32. This is Jesus. We get a glimpse of Jesus who, I mean, I think Jesus, Jesus, was walking faith. So there's no more pure faith that we've seen here on this side of eternity than in Jesus, right? And so let's just make sure to have that context. And I think this is so crucial.

And this has been one of those tender ways that Jesus has ministered to my soul asking this very question. Because my tendency is to hyper-spiritualize everything that I face so that I leap-frog over the trauma and go, it's fine because God's going to take everything and use it for good. And that is true. God can take what we face and what we walk through and he can use it for good. But it's also truth that we need to tend well to our feelings. So if we go to Mark chapter 14 and we see the embodiment of faith through Jesus Christ, we see right before he goes to the cross, he cries out some really important prayers to God from the garden. And he says, first, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.

You know what's so fascinating to me about that is Jesus knew every answer because he's fully God and fully man. So in his fullness of divinity, he had the answer to every question. He knew what was happening, when it was going to happen, how it was going to turn out. He knew the answer to every question, and yet he still cried out. My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Sometimes I think we hyper-spiritualized things, tie them up in a neat, nice bow, and we seek to fill in the gaps of what we don't know by saying little trite statements. Like, you know, God's going to take this and use it for good. Now, it's not trite when we are authentically walking out scripture, but it's trite.

when we just use that to leapfrog over our own need to tend well to our feelings. And if Jesus needed to tend well to his feelings, why would we think that we wouldn't have to, right? And also, if you think about Jesus had the answer to every single question, we can search our whole life trying to find answers to why this happened and when it's going to get better and how God is going to use it for good. But that's not necessarily what will comfort us. Jesus had all those answers and he still cried out, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. And so powerful, right? Then he cries out, God, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. And that's also extremely powerful because I relate to that. I know what it's like to cry out to

God and say, God, everything is possible for you. You can change this. Don't let this be my story. Don't let this be the way that it goes. Don't let this be the way people talk about it, you know. God, everything is possible for you. Take this cup for me. But then Jesus, after fully exploring his feelings, fully pouring out great honesty about where he's at, then he says, yet not what I will, but what you will. And in those words, that's where he takes the feelings fully acknowledged and he submits them and surrenders them to God's will.

That's what I think it means when we take fact and faith and bring. them together. That was beautiful. I'm trying not to talk to you like you're one of my home girls because that was like, girl, finger snaps and all of the things because it's going to be so liberating to finally allow someone who's listening to have permission to feel this and to recognize that feeling it doesn't mean that I don't have faith for what's on the other side of it or faith that God can use it.

But the resistance in trying to not feel it, I think, is what allows so many of us to end up with health conditions and headaches and we're tired and we're weary because all of our energy is going to suppressing what we feel and hanging on to our faith and to allow ourselves the release that comes when we say, this really sucks. I really didn't want this. I really wish things would have been differently. I wish the doctor's report was different. I wish I was going through a different stage in parenting. And yet, our faith is so strengthened when the Lord can meet us in our truth, our honesty and vulnerability. For me, therapy was the place where my relationship with God got deeper because my prayer life was deeper. I was able to say, Lord, I'm experiencing some anxiety

about this thing that's coming up. I've got fear in my heart. When I was able to give it language, then the Holy Spirit would come and meet me right in the area of that greatest need. And so I just thank you so much for making that so crystal clear for people who are listening because that's starting with facts and allowing faith to really be resonant in the fact and not just in the future, I believe it's going to help so many people. Thank you. Yeah, and that's why I feel so passionate about combining therapy and theology, making sure that I have my life experiences. But then right beside me on every podcast, therapy and theology, I have Jim Kress, who's licensed professional counselor, and he specializes in betrayal trauma. He specializes in certain addictions that he can

help us walk through and better understand from a therapeutic standpoint how to care for our emotions and our mental health and all of that. Then we've got Dr. Joel Mutamali, who is one of my favorite humans on the planet when it comes to processing biblical truth. And he steps right in and doesn't teach from pie in the sky theology, but he's right there down on the ground, meeting us where we're at. And then I always joke, Jim brings the therapy, Joel brings the theology, and I bring the problems. So it's just a great question.

Well, let me tell you, you're bringing all of our problems, and we appreciate you for being a sacrificial lamb as it were so that we could be made better. we talked about fact and now let's talk a little bit about impact before I cut you off. You were going to begin to start speaking about impacts and how the impact of those facts can be something that we have to walk out in the context of relationships or whatever else we may be experiencing that's difficult. Yeah, I think the impact part is absolutely crucial because when we've been through an emotional, emotional trauma, we don't often connect it, just like you mentioned a minute ago, to the health impact that that has on us. So if we just take the health impact alone, you know, when I was walking through first discovering in 2016, the betrayal of my then husband, I, 2016 was a really, a really

strange year for me. It was a year of extreme highs and extreme lows. So I found out about my then-husband's infidelity and his double life the weekend of my oldest daughter's wedding. And so, of course, I had to take all that I was facing and sort of stuff it down and get through that weekend. The thing was seven weeks later, my second daughter was getting married. And a few months after that, my son was getting married. So three of my five kids were walking through, you know, preparing for weddings that year.

And so it was this really hard tension for me to manage of being devastated over and over by more and more discoveries. There wasn't disclosures necessarily from my ex-husband, but there was a lot of discovery. And every discovery felt like the rug had been ripped out from underneath me again and again and again. So having these extreme highs of the weddings, but wanting to protect my kids, and so keeping all of this locked inside of me, Yes, people would say it was emotional trauma. But halfway through that year, my colon ripped away from the abdominal wall, twisted around itself, and started dying inside of me. And I had to be rushed into emergency surgery, and they had to remove most of my colon. And the doctor, the surgeon, took a picture of what it looked like for them to remove all that was dead inside of me.

And when he lifted it up and snapped that picture, he gave me that picture because he said, Lisa, I always want you to remember the effect that emotional trauma has physically on your body. Most people never get to see it. But I got a snapshot, a picture of what my insides look like as a direct result of that emotional trauma. And so I have just been super passionate about helping people understand that there is an impact. there is a cost to everything we walk through. Now, certainly from a biblical standpoint, you know, Jesus wants us to tend well to it.

God has provision. You know, forgiveness is actually God's prescription for the human heart to heal. And so it's not an unfair gift we have to give to the other person. It's the process we walk through to tend well to ourselves spiritually and not let things like bitterness, rage, and unattended to anger, eat us alive inside. So from a biblical standpoint, it's important. But also from a health standpoint, you mentioned people have unexplainable headaches.

They have unexplainable fatigue. They have, you know, just nerve-ending pain and all kinds of things. And certainly, I'm not a medical doctor, so I cannot be the one to draw a straight line from your emotional trauma and the impact it's had on your body. But I do know that there are direct correlations. And so it's crucial from a spiritual standpoint and a physical, standpoint that we tend well to the impact emotional traumas are having on us. Okay.

Okay. I want to talk up, because you said something about forgiveness that I think just deeply resonated with me about it being God's prescription. And I feel like as we have been on the outside looking in on your journey that you have shared with us, your journey of forgiveness, sometimes in even your previous work and books, how do you feel like your recent book about surviving an unwanted divorce is different than, or more expansive than what you have given us as it relates to pain and forgiveness in the past? Well, I was able to go very specific, you know, by making, there's two chapters

on forgiveness in this surviving and unwanted divorce. So when I wrote forgiving what you can't forget another book that I wrote specifically on forgiveness, it needed to apply to things that many people were facing in many circumstances. But with surviving an unwanted divorce, I'm able to get so specific about, and really laser pinpoint some of those things that are going to feel incredibly unfair about forgiveness when you're walking through an unwanted divorce. And also how it can feel like you're a forgiveness failure when you get triggered in your pain and those bitter feelings come back. And what I want to help people understand is you're not a forgiveness failure. You're just walking through discovering more impact of the fact of what happened to you. And remember, with those two

things walk together and work together. And so I think being able to be very specific and laser focused on some of the unique pain and hurt of facing an unwanted divorce, I think makes those chapters really, it just brings forgiveness home to people. You know, Sarah, one of the things that I had the hardest time with is sometimes the unchangeable feels quite unforgivable. And when you're walking through a divorce, there's a lot of permanent dynamics to that reality. And it can feel like because those things are now unchangeable, that it feels like unforgivable. It's hard to walk toward a future that you didn't see coming, that you didn't want, that you didn't ask for, and yet here it is. And, you know, I sit with women often, very personally. As a matter of fact,

this weekend, I'm hosting two groups of 50 women at my home. I do retreat specifically to heal. and I will sit with them. And the way that we start off the retreat, talking about forgiveness, I see a lot of pushback, a lot of arms crossed, a lot of, yeah, but you don't really understand what he did to me, you know, that kind of thing. By the end of the retreat, there are women dancing with relief. I mean, literally dancing, thanking God for taking this bold, of unforgiveness out of their heart. And it's not that they don't still have things to work through.

They do. They still have things to work through. But just changing our mindset toward forgiveness is such a huge step in the right direction and no longer looking at forgiveness as the unfair gift we have to give to the person who hurt us the most. But rather, see, forgiveness is our opportunity to put a stake in the ground and declare, I have suffered enormous. enough because of what another person has done to me. My choice to forgive is my choice to heal and it's my choice to make. So you think there's a parallel between unforgiveness and continued suffering? There absolutely is.

There absolutely is because when we hold on to unforgiveness, sometimes we feel like that's kind of a protective mechanism. So the person who hurt us doesn't, we don't allow them. Like if we can feel bitter towards them, then that's kind of a built-in safety mechanism that they won't keep hurting us. There is a provision for that built-in safety mechanism, but it's not bitterness. It's boundaries. And so whenever we're talking about forgiveness, we also have to talk about boundaries as well. Because what bitterness will do, bitterness, yeah, it may keep, it may put up a guard against that other person. But what we don't realize is bitterness doesn't just want to be a feeling in our heart.

Bitterness wants to be a consuming feeling in our heart. And it will turn us into someone that we never want to be. So instead of bitterness, we tend well to our bitterness so that we don't stay locked in unforgiveness. But we also have to realize, even when Jesus taught us to forgive 70 times seven, that does not mean to stay in such close proximity with that person that we just allow them to keep hurting us over and over and over. No, we create enough safe distance, enough boundaries with that person that if they don't change, we can, from afar, forgive 70 times seven without getting destroyed

in the process. You know, I have to tell you, I've gone through a divorce. And one of the things that was most challenging for me in the forgiveness process was I had to forgive myself. I think greater than forgiving him for the experiences that we had in our marriage. I felt like I had to forgive myself for allowing it, for not being honest about what I was seeing about like playing the fool. I just felt like there were so many things that I internalized in the process. And so I'm wondering, as much as it is about forgiving perhaps what happened in the person who may have inflicted some pain in our lives. I'm wondering that process of forgiving yourself for staying, for not speaking up, for not walking away sooner, what does that look like for the women that you're

working with? Oh yeah. Well, I'll speak from a very personal standpoint. You know, Sarah, I, I fought really, really hard for my marriage. The last 10 years of my marriage, I was separated five of those years, refusing to give up. And there were some honorable reasons for that stretching out so long. But there was also some really unhealthy reasons. I definitely had some codependency, a lot of codependency happening. And the easiest way for me to explain to people, because the minute I say codependency, it's like, well, I'm an independent woman.

How in the world could I be codependent, right? But this is how it played out for me. I need him to be okay, so I can feel okay. So how can I make him okay? Because I want to feel okay, okay? Wow. You know? Yeah.

So whenever we're caught in that kind of a dysfunctional dance, there's codependency happening. And I had to forgive myself for allowing that codependency to enable bad behavior because I was so I was more desperate for him to be okay so that there could be kind of this weird, false sense of temporary peace in our world. and so I enabled things that I should have never enabled. I didn't call out things that I should have called out. I didn't get attention or help for the things that I should have gotten attention and help for.

But Jim has taught me, rather than wallowing in, why did I do that then? Jim, my therapist, has just constantly said to me, when you know better, do better. And so that's what I'm determined now. It's like, yeah, could I autopsy all of that to add nauseam? sure I could. Are there things I wish I would have done differently? A hundred percent. Were there things that I enabled that I should have never enabled? Yes. And do I have to forgive myself for those? Yes. But mostly when I, now that I know better, I'm going to do better. And so that's why I had to step into this realm of understanding that we are going to attract people around us at the

same level of mental help that we're at. So to know better and do better means that I want to get healthy, really healthy, so that and healed from a lot of those negative tendencies that allowed some of that, you know, hurt and harm to come my way, I want to get healed and healthy so that I can attract the right kind of people at a level of health and healing because that's what I want around me now. And so I do see it playing out when you know better, you do better. And that's the big part of my future. And it sounds like you have done exactly that attracted someone who's healthier and in a better space for you as you have moved into a better space.

I want to talk about that a little bit. But before we move into the continued unfolding of your life and journey, I want to take a minute. And only because we talked a little bit about overriding the facts and hanging on to faith, maybe someone's like, you know what, the only thing that I'm hanging on to, maybe I have experienced abuse. Maybe I have experienced destruction. Maybe I recognize that this isn't healthy. But for me, I'm just hanging on to this scripture about God hates divorce, God hates divorce. Can we talk a little bit to that person who's like, for me, I just don't want to do

anything that God hates? Absolutely. Yeah, you know, it seems to be the one verse that Christians are familiar with when you say, well, what does the Bible say about divorce? And they say, God hates divorce. And then I'll often say, okay, can you show me in the Bible where it says that? And if they know, they'll turn to Malachi chapter 12, verse 16, right? And if you're holding an NIV Bible or one of the other modern translations, you'll see a different phraseology. You're not going to see an NIV. be, you're not going to see it say, God hates divorce. What you're going to see is what I feel like is a much more proper, theologically correct language discernment, if you will, for that verse. So God hates divorce did not come about until the King James Version. And the King James Version

was not the first version of the Bible. So we have to go back to the original language, which where we can find the original intent, we go all the way back to Hebrew, because it's in Old Testament, or the Septuagint, which is the Hebrew Bible translated into Greek. When you go back to that, this is what a better interpretation

of that verse is. When a man hates and divorces his wife, he does violence against the one he should protect, thus says the Lord. You see, the hatred or the violence is not against the innocent party in there. It's not against the one being hurt and harmed. It's what a man, it's where a man, or of course, we can translate it female too,

because sometimes men are walking through unwanted divorces, right? But just for the sake of my story, it's where I was assuming God hates divorce. So if I get divorced, then God hates something that I've done in my life. And the weight of that is probably one of the biggest factors that made me stay longer than I ever should have stayed in that dynamic. And so with surviving an unwanted divorce, Joel and I worked really, really hard to do an entire biblical theology around what the Bible actually says and does not say about divorce so that we are inadvertently weaponizing or versus against people or shaming people that really should take a hard look at what they're experiencing in their marriage, but they're too afraid of it because all they know is God hates

divorce. So I am so thankful that in this book, if you pick it up, Joel is going to spend several chapters where he's going to walk you through scriptures. Where did divorce come from? What was the original intent? And even more importantly than that, what is God's intent for marriage? Because Joel and I and Jim, none of us want to be seen as pro-divorce. Look, I hate what divorce does to people. I hate what it does to families, and I think God hates what divorce does to people and families as well. But we've got to correctly know the scripture so that we can talk intelligently and not add hurt and shame upon somebody who's already devastated because they're walking through an unwanted divorce. One of the things that I got a chance to just not fully read it, but to skin through your book in preparation. And I love the distinction of marriage being a covenant that is made with God as a witness.

and what that means for our paradigm as we talk about marriage and how serious it is that God is a witness to that covenant, but also that it's not necessarily a covenant with God. I want to make sure that I said that and understood it properly. So if there's something that I've misspoken, please correct it. But I felt like that was such a paradigm because it brings such honor, I think, for the two parties who are entering into the marriage to recognize God is my witness.

So there's a certain posture I need to possess, a certain integrity that I want to bring to this moment, but also that the covenant is with the person. That's right. That's right. There's unilateral covenants and bilateral covenants. And I think that Joel does a really good job of explaining that from a theological standpoint in a way that the average everyday Bible girl like me can understand it. And I think another point that he brings up that holds hands with that concept is we never want to elevate the institution of marriage.

over the safety and well-being of an image bearer of Christ. So I know that you have to kind of sit with that for a minute. Now, what I don't want people to hear is I don't want you to hear that we dishonor marriage. Don't hear that. Because marriage is holy, it is sacred. God's intent for marriage is holy and sacred. It's very, very important. You know, marriage is a picture between Christ and his bride.

So it absolutely should be held in high esteem. But marriage should never, the institution of marriage should never be elevated in priority. Like we have to keep the marriage together no matter what over the safety and well-being of an image bearer of Christ, who possibly is getting destroyed in this relationship because of the abuse that she's facing or because addictions have spun out of control with her partner and her very safety is at risk here. So I just think it's really important that we don't send women, especially, right back into abusive situations because we're so intent on holding the marriage together. Look, at that point, she is not having difficulties in her marriage. She is facing a destructive marriage.

And those two things have to be handled so differently. Okay. And we're running out of time. I want to ask you two questions before we go. the first question, someone's going through divorce and they're having to deal with, I feel like I still didn't even really get into the fullness of the impact. You all just have to get the book and I feel like it's going to give you so many answers to things that we didn't get to cover today. But I feel like one of the hardest things to do after you have gone through a divorce is to live in that new identity with other people and to vocalize.

It's like, oh, we got divorced or I'm a divorcee now. Because in many ways, it can feel like it is an introduction that I failed, an introduction that maybe I wasn't good enough. And I'm having to introduce this reality into the friends and family dynamics that I had before or while I was married. Can we talk a little bit about the courage it takes to own the dissolution of a marriage, but to do it with, do you do it with confidence? Do you do it shaking?

How do you do that? Well, let's start with the words we use because words frame our reality, right? So for me, I didn't walk away from my relationship. I didn't walk away from my marriage. I was forced to accept a very painful reality. And so at first, I was having a heart. hard time even saying the word divorce. It just pierced me in such a deep place. So Jim gave me this gift one day in one of our therapy sessions. He said, why don't we just say it was the death of your

marriage? And for a while, that's exactly what I had to call it because to me, it was the deepest grief I'd ever known in my entire life. And so because words frame our reality, I think it's really important. We own it however it is that we need to own it based on the truth. I didn't walk away from my marriage. I accepted a painful reality. That's true. Divorce was not something that I ever wanted, and it was the deepest grief I've ever known. So I'm going to call it the death of my marriage. And so I think it's just making sure that we use words that don't annihilate our previous spouse, you know, because we don't want to do that, but also that are very honest about where we're at in that process.

One of the hardest days for me, Sarah, honestly, was the first time I went to a doctor's appointment, and they handed me papers to fill out, and there was two questions that crushed me. The first was, check the box, married, divorce, single. And I know that they were just expecting a check mark, But in my heart, I wanted to explain pages of like, you don't understand. This was not a decision that I flippantly made.

And I wanted to give all this explanation. And in the end, I just checked the box divorce because that's what you're supposed to do. The second question that really hurt me was emergency contact because that was the moment where I realized I lost my person. You know, I had a person. And now that person's no longer my person. And so who do I put as my emergency contact? And of course, I have people in my life.

But it was just facing that. It was so devastating. And look, there are going to be some friends that understand this, and there are going to be some friends that do not understand it. So I would encourage you to not only read this book if you're facing an unwanted divorce, but also friends of people walking through an unwanted divorce. Get this book, Surviving an Unwanted Divorce, read it. and let it tenderize your heart and help you be aware of words that will help and words that will

heal as you're walking beside your friend. Final question. Someone's gone through a divorce and you're like, you know what? I went through that and I am never getting married again. I will never, ever, ever do it. And then there's this one person and, you know, it'd be one thing if they just had a nice smile. But like now you got to put your heart. You love the Lord.

Like you're making me question whether or not I can do this thing again. how do you begin to open your heart again after experiencing an unwanted divorce? Well, I was definitely one that said I will never attach my well-being to a relationship as significant as a husband. You know, I'm just never going to do that. And my daughter, who's very wise, she said to me, Mom, maybe we shouldn't use the word never. I don't think that that honors God to say never, you know, because with God, all things are possible. Now, it's not that all things are permissible, you know, like we do have to be careful, for sure. And certainly if that is where the Lord is leading you, then follow hard after the Lord

and be obedient to him and that. And I know some women that are single and they're well in, up in the years of age, and they are happy and content. And that is their journey. And that is wonderful, right? Nothing wrong with that. But my daughter encouraged me to say never and I'm thankful that she did because there did come a time where I wasn't sure I could trust anyone. Also, I didn't want to be alone. Also, I wanted a companion. Also, I didn't want a companion. Also, you know, it was like this tug of war inside of me. And what I needed to do is I needed to heal. And so I get to the point where I'd had enough time and enough healing where I didn't need another person to help me get over this divorce. Rather, I needed to be, I needed to be bringing my best

healthy self into another relationship that I was free to want the right person. Because if you need someone else to help you heal, you may need a person who later is not going to be the right healthy person for you, right? But if you allow that time and let some things unfold and let healing happen, then you'll have a much greater chance to attract the right kind of person. And when I met my husband, my now husband, there were two things that I was like, it just cracked my heart open and that's where it all started. He said, he was looking for someone who thinks God is great and who has an amazing story to tell, also someone who has done the work.

And you don't know that phraseology done the work unless you've been in therapy and done the work. And also, a lot of people will say that they're Christians, but if they don't think God is great and they don't walk up to church on a Sunday morning, happy to be there, you know, that's what I needed. And when I saw that, I was like, the boy basically skips up to the church house.

He is ready. He is ready to meet Jesus every Sunday morning. And there was just something so endearing and it felt safe. Now, did we have to date a while? Yes, we did, you know, because I wanted to make sure to go through all four seasons and make sure to see him in every season. And of course, there were trust issues that had to be worked through and all of that. But I found somebody I was willing to do the work with, and I'm so glad I did.

someone I'm willing to do the work with. What a way to land. I am blown away by your story, by your heart, by your wisdom, by the way the Lord has really met you and allowed you to share what you guys are working through in your secret time and all of the people who God's just brought into your life to help your voice grows stronger, your vision more clear. It's certainly impactful. And I know this conversation is going to bless so many people. So thank you so much for just that outpouring of your heart and experiences for our listeners. Well, thank you so much. It was an absolute joy to be with you today.

Sarah, maybe we'll just do it again sometime. I would love that. I tried to told you. I tried to told you that this was going to be a blessing. And I hope I was right for you. Drop us a line and let us know how this resonated with you. Lisa, I have to thank you for reminding us that healing isn't a straight line, but it is a sacred process.

Through your story, we see that even in the middle of devastation, that God's presence is not absent. It's often deeper than we've ever known before, and the opportunity to dig into that deeper is an invitation that we should always accept. If today's combo resonated with you, consider picking up Lisa's latest book for yourself or for another woman in your life who could use this bit of hope.

God, I thank you. you that you are the God of transition, that you are not just the God of the beginning and the end, but you are the God of the Middle. Right now we call on the God of the Middle. Many of us are facing uncertainty, facing lives that are unwanted, but it is what we have been dealt. And so God, we're praying that you would show us how to be confident in your plan to build our faith in this area. This is an opportunity for us to know you more deeply and to understand your will and your power and your sovereignty and more intimate levels. And so we say, yes, God.

We want to know the God of the middle. We want to know the God who navigates uncertainty. We want to know you more deeply. Thank you, God, for this time together. And with these incredible, incredible individuals that I get to love the way that you love, bless them and bless us. in Jesus' name. Amen. Evolve.