Lisa's Story
Saved, Healed, and Restored
My childhood carried deep wounds. My mom suffered severe mental illness. My parents divorced when I was 12. My mom attempted suicide multiple times before taking her life when I was 19. A few years later, I lost my younger brother.
I didn’t know how to process the grief, so I carried it quietly and learned to survive without healing. Growing up, I always believed in God, but I didn’t know his heart, and eventually, I stepped away from church for 15 years. I continued to pray, but I prayed from a place of fear, pain, desperation and bargain. I didn’t know how to walk with Christ or rest in His love.
I didn’t know how to process the grief, so I carried it quietly and learned to survive without healing. Growing up, I always believed in God, but I didn’t know his heart, and eventually, I stepped away from church for 15 years. I continued to pray, but I prayed from a place of fear, pain, desperation and bargain. I didn’t know how to walk with Christ or rest in His love.
My adult years brought more trauma. I entered into an abusive marriage that ended after six years. Without healing, community, or a relationship with Christ, I walked into another abusive relationship that same year. I remained in that relationship for 15 years of emotional, verbal, and physical abuse. I stayed because I believed keeping all four children under one roof meant protecting them from a “broken home.” I did not understand that the home was already broken and needed rescuing.
Over the pandemic, that marriage ended with betrayal, and overwhelming emotional pain. Soon after, I lost my job of nine years. I was overwhelmed, drowning in severe chronic cervical pain, focused on the negative, and carrying a God-sized hole I didn’t know how to fill. I coped the only way I knew how: alcohol and cannabis.
In 2022, a friend invited me to church. I walked in with decades of trauma, addiction, and heartbreak and walked out carrying a spark of hope. God was drawing me in. One month later, I fell to my knees in complete surrender and gave Jesus my whole life. In that single moment, He set me free from alcohol, cannabis and prescription pain medication. I had no withdrawals. Only peace. Soon, I was baptized, declaring my new life in Christ.
2025 became one of the most challenging years of my life. My chronic pain came back, as did injury, sleep deprivation and a severe medication reaction. While this was happening, I lost my job, and one week later, was given two weeks for me and my children to vacate our home.
All of this triggered a mental health crisis, but for the first time in my life, my foundation was Christ. I did not numb. I did not run. I did not drink. I did not fall apart. I stood firm on my foundation.
Our new home brought us closer to Calvary Church. When I walked into Calvary, I was still carrying the pain and exhaustion of the year, but soon discovered why he brought me here. God brought me to a Spirit-filled community filled with authentic believers, powerful intercessors, deep biblical teaching, and the presence of God.
Over this year, I’ve joined Bible studies and the prayer ministry, found a mentor, taken classes, discovered my spiritual gifts, joined a serve team. I have seen Scripture came alive with clarity, depth, and power, and I have strengthened my spirit with bold and faith-filled prayer.
Looking back, I see what God was doing. My roots were already planted firmly in Christ, but they needed deeper soil, richer community, and stronger spiritual covering. Calvary became that soil.
Just as Ephesians 3:17–18 says, I became “rooted and established in love,” and Colossians 2:7 declares, I was “built up and strengthened in the faith I already had,” and Psalm 92:13 says, “planted in the house of the Lord,” I began to flourish.
Today, my deepest desire is to serve Jesus, love others, share my testimony, and help make disciples of all nations. If God healed me, delivered me, restored me, and carried me through every storm. He can do it for anyone.
To Jesus be all the glory. Forever and ever. Amen.
Over the pandemic, that marriage ended with betrayal, and overwhelming emotional pain. Soon after, I lost my job of nine years. I was overwhelmed, drowning in severe chronic cervical pain, focused on the negative, and carrying a God-sized hole I didn’t know how to fill. I coped the only way I knew how: alcohol and cannabis.
In 2022, a friend invited me to church. I walked in with decades of trauma, addiction, and heartbreak and walked out carrying a spark of hope. God was drawing me in. One month later, I fell to my knees in complete surrender and gave Jesus my whole life. In that single moment, He set me free from alcohol, cannabis and prescription pain medication. I had no withdrawals. Only peace. Soon, I was baptized, declaring my new life in Christ.
2025 became one of the most challenging years of my life. My chronic pain came back, as did injury, sleep deprivation and a severe medication reaction. While this was happening, I lost my job, and one week later, was given two weeks for me and my children to vacate our home.
All of this triggered a mental health crisis, but for the first time in my life, my foundation was Christ. I did not numb. I did not run. I did not drink. I did not fall apart. I stood firm on my foundation.
Our new home brought us closer to Calvary Church. When I walked into Calvary, I was still carrying the pain and exhaustion of the year, but soon discovered why he brought me here. God brought me to a Spirit-filled community filled with authentic believers, powerful intercessors, deep biblical teaching, and the presence of God.
Over this year, I’ve joined Bible studies and the prayer ministry, found a mentor, taken classes, discovered my spiritual gifts, joined a serve team. I have seen Scripture came alive with clarity, depth, and power, and I have strengthened my spirit with bold and faith-filled prayer.
Looking back, I see what God was doing. My roots were already planted firmly in Christ, but they needed deeper soil, richer community, and stronger spiritual covering. Calvary became that soil.
Just as Ephesians 3:17–18 says, I became “rooted and established in love,” and Colossians 2:7 declares, I was “built up and strengthened in the faith I already had,” and Psalm 92:13 says, “planted in the house of the Lord,” I began to flourish.
Today, my deepest desire is to serve Jesus, love others, share my testimony, and help make disciples of all nations. If God healed me, delivered me, restored me, and carried me through every storm. He can do it for anyone.
To Jesus be all the glory. Forever and ever. Amen.
At Calvary Church, our mission is to see lives transformed by the power of God. If God has transformed your life, share your story here.