Revive Our Hearts

Danna Gresh: 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 had decided to take his life.

But a lot of people were attacking me within the community and saying, "This is your fault." So I was like, "I'm not wanted here. I want to get out." So that was hard.

Danna Gresh: 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 let her escape the pain of her past relationship.

Sarah: It kind of 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 mean, I was running away from things in Ohio, trauma, things that had happened, and I just wanted to get out. So that was my way of saying, "Let's go."

Danna Gresh: Sarah and her boyfriend got engaged and moved to Minnesota. But the new relationship and 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 going better. I wasn't happy in life and I thought that this was going to make me happy. And it kind of got worse. We would argue and fight and his ex-wife was very much controlling and jealous and 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? And I just kept wondering why I wasn't happy. 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 just can't do this anymore."

Danna Gresh: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast for August 28th, 2026. I'm Danna Gresh. Our host is the author of Adorned: Living Out the Beauty of the Gospel Together, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: 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. 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. That's A-I-S-L-E. And I have found such joy through being attentive to those around me, 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.

Danna is 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.

Danna Gresh: And 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. Now 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 Marcy.

Marcy: 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. And so growing up, they introduced me to Jesus. But it was inconsistent. They didn't have somebody that came alongside them and shared life with them to show them what living for God looked like.

And so when I was older and I just became hungrier and thirstier and I surrendered my life fully to the Lord, I was reading through Titus and 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.

And I just thought, oh my goodness, well, Lord, I do not want to blaspheme You, so show me how. And I went back to Titus 2 where it had said older women train the younger women and 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. And she was so filled with grace and love. And so she just modeled that to me.

Danna Gresh: Psalm 145: "One generation shall commend your works to the next generation and 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.

Marcy: And so when I was doing dishes one day and I had heard on the radio through Revive Our Hearts Susan Hunt speaking 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."

Danna Gresh: The local church is where we know each other's 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.

Marcy: And I said, "Yes, that's it." And so then I was like, "I need to learn more." So I just went on the internet, led me to the Adorned conference through Revive Our Hearts, where I got to hear the whole message of Susan Hunt where she spoke about don't give up that modeling career. So cute. But hearing the whole message, and I was left in tears.

That message burned inside my chest and something came alive. And 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. I said, "Hey, I want to have a Bible study." And she's like, "Oh," she's very reserved and balanced, very opposite of me. And she said, "What would that look like?"

I said, "I don't know, 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 and Nancy DeMoss wrote it and it's so awesome, so it's going to be great." And she goes, "Oh, well, how long is that going to run for?" And 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." So she just walked me through how to have a Bible study.

And it was the scariest thing I've ever done. And all these older women came, silver-haired saints. 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'm like, "I want to do this for the rest of my life."

Danna Gresh: While God was calling Marcy 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 just can't do this anymore."

Danna Gresh: So Sarah and her fiance 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." And my mom sent me a link to this church and my fiance and I went and it was very welcoming the first Sunday. People came up and welcomed us and said, "Hi, how are you? Are you new?" Just felt very warm and welcoming.

Danna Gresh: And Sarah was struck by the truth of God's word during that sermon. She wanted more.

Marcy: Then the following Sunday we had come back. My father-in-law came over and said, "Marcy, there is a couple here and the young man is near from where you grew up." And so I said, "Okay, let's meet them." And so they're talking about similar things in the area. And then the Lord, it was as if He physically turned my gaze upon Sarah.

Sarah: She's like, "Hi, you're new here. Who are you? Tell me about yourself."

Marcy: I love God so much and what He did was He showed me His love for Sarah in that moment. And 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."

It was like a little girl. It's like I saw a little girl, even though she was a woman, a grown woman. It was like this little girl was standing there in a foreign land and she didn't know anyone. And through questions, I found out that she had no family here, that she had moved here from Ohio. And I remember moving to Central Minnesota and I had no family and I remember having no sisters in Christ at all. And so just seeing a little girl hungry and wanting to know her Father. Wow, like I get to be a part of that? And 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 and just poured God's love, grace, and mercy into my life. And over the next year and a half, loved me into God's arms.

Danna Gresh: But that year and a half process wasn't easy. Not long after Sarah and Marcy met, the COVID pandemic made it hard to meet in person.

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

And 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." And when I saw that, I thought, "Well, how is she going to do that with COVID? How is she going to do that when we're not meeting together?" So the Lord ignited something in my heart again.

And my other friend had reached out and said, "Marcy, a bonfire would be really great at your house sometime." Because it's all outdoors. It's strange. What do we do in this COVID situation? It's foreign to us. And I just prayed, and the Lord brought six women to mind, and Sarah was one of them. I saved this because this day was just so fabulous. But 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: And I was just ecstatic that someone was inviting me.

Marcy: And she texts back, "Yes," exclamation mark, exclamation mark. And it was the cutest thing ever. Because when she showed up, she was the first one there, and she hopped out of the car and she had her Bible. So this girl was hungry. She was so hungry for not only the word of God, but for fellowship and community.

Sarah: And 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 and how they raised their children and the things that they talked about and what concerned them for their children and their husbands.

Marcy: And so from that moment on, every single week we had a bonfire and we gathered together. And at the very end we would pray. We would just tap into what everyone's prayer request was, and then 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 and to continue gathering together, even though the world was saying separate, isolate. And the Lord just bonded Sarah and me 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. And it's something that I desire 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 so many amazing relationships because I was then able to be comfortable enough to share my testimony with them.

Marcy: She wrote out her testimony. She goes, "You guys want to hear my testimony?" We're like, "Yes!" And 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 encourage me specifically through those. I opened up and started sharing so much more with them.

Danna Gresh: 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. And like, who am I that You want to give Your life for me? And that You love me and that You've forgiven me and I'm a new creation through You. Those are things that I still am trying to wrap my mind around. But nothing that any man or human could make you feel by any means.

Danna Gresh: 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 fiance.

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

Danna Gresh: Sarah and her fiance parted ways. And 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: Yeah, so it's Romans 5:3 and it 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."

Danna Gresh: Sarah kept growing in her faith thanks to Marcy's family, this church family, and even this program.

Sarah: Through Marcy and the women that I was meeting with at the bonfire, one of the gals' names was Elizabeth and she told me about the Revive Our Hearts podcast and that I should listen to it. And so 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.

Danna Gresh: We already heard how the Lord put a passion on Marcy'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.

Marcy: She just started loving the young girls at our church. And it is amazing. She's 24 years old. And we have this cusp of junior-highers turning 13 to 14, just blooming at our church. And 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. And being able to pour life and encourage them was a blessing and an opportunity only God could have given me.

Marcy: And you have us older women and then silver-haired saints and we're sharing a life and I'm sharing life with Sarah and these junior highers, they 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 she prayed for me. I was one of those women that the Lord used and 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 or children well, either.

And so the Lord redeems our failures and He restores our circumstances. And my mom has a wonderful passion for the Lord now. And 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 then those opportunities. "Oh, here's an opportunity. Yes, Lord, I will partner with You to display Your love to her."

Danna Gresh: One woman really can make a difference. That's been our theme all this month here on Revive Our Hearts and 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 a Revive Our Hearts program about mentoring. That had a huge effect on Marcy. Then Marcy 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 Marcy 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. Marcy 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 are here and how God orchestrates conversation and running into people. It's just a beautiful place to be here. So I think I'm just here because God wants me to be here.

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

Marcy: Okay, so there's a Revive Our Hearts Facebook leadership group. And so all you have to do is answer a couple questions. What is your position at your church? Which was also pretty funny because like, "What is your position at your church?" Volunteer ministering to women. And so that was enough to get me in.

And 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 and the resources, it seems limitless. Why have I had this Revive Our Hearts all to myself? I need to start sharing this with the women of my church and I need to start asking God what He will do through it for the women.

Danna Gresh: When you support Revive Our Hearts, you help us provide resources such as books and Bible studies and videos to leaders like Marcy. Would you help make a difference in the lives of women like Marcy and Sarah and others just like them all around the world?

That is such a great challenge, Nancy, and it really is possible through something as simple as just making a donation. When you give a gift of any size this month, we want to say thank you by sending you the "30 Days of Praying for Your Grandchildren" booklet. This resource provides a month of prompts to help you pray intentionally for the grandkids in your life, whether biological or spiritual.

To donate and request yours, visit ReviveOurHearts.com or call us at 1-800-569-5959. And if you live outside the US or Canada, you know the drill. We can't say you a physical booklet, but we've got a digital copy already to go. Again, you can find that at ReviveOurHearts.com.

Next week, it's time for a celebration. Revive Our Hearts is turning 25. Can you believe it? We're going to revisit some of the themes Nancy has taught on the most, themes like cultivating a personal devotional life, walking through life's storms, and more.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: And so Jesus says to Martha, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. But one thing is needful." David said, "One thing have I asked of the Lord." Jesus says to Martha, "One thing is absolutely necessary. If you don't get anything else done on your to-do list today, will it be this one thing?"

What is that thing? It's what Mary has chosen, to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to Him, to commune with Him. He says, "Mary has chosen that good portion, that one needful thing which will not be taken away from her."

This requires a conscious, deliberate choice. I've found, and I'm sure you have too, that if I just try and fit God into my day, He's going to get crowded out. What I need to do is plant Him in the middle of my day, first in my day, core central in my day, and then let everything else fill its way in.

Danna Gresh: Please be back for 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.