Lisa Saruga, A Brutal Assault Changed Her Life Forever | COMPASS in the Storm Ep 14

Full Transcript

Transcribed from the episode audio. Names, places, scripture references and terms have been corrected, and caption noise has been removed. Speaker names are not marked, because the source captions marked only that the speaker changed and not who was talking. Paragraph breaks follow those speaker changes.

I was sleeping alone in my residence hall room. I woke up, there was a man in a ski mask crouched by my bed. It was terrifying. By the time that morning was over, definitely changed the course of my life in ways that I never could have anticipated. A violent assault changed her life forever. But stay tuned to hear how God transformed her pain into purpose.

Thank you for joining me today. I’m Lana Bach, your host on COMPASS in the Storm, a monthly podcast where we feature stories of people who overcame life-altering storms with God’s grace and now offer hope and encouragement to others. If you are looking for powerful, uplifting stories that will offer you hope and strengthen your faith, be sure to subscribe and click the bell button so you don’t miss any new episodes of our monthly podcast. My guest today is a speaker and the author of her book titled The Trauma Tree. She’s a licensed professional counselor and an EMDR trauma therapist. She herself is a trauma victim and survivor. She writes, speaks, and advocates for victim’s rights as her full-time mission. She’s here to tell trauma survivors that it’s possible to grow through trauma and it’s never too late. I want to welcome my special guest today, Lisa Saruga. Welcome, Lisa. Thank you for being with me today.

Thank you for having me. I am so excited to be here.

Well, I thank you for being here. And Lisa, I first met you at a Christian women’s retreat last year in Myrtle Beach, and that’s where I learned for the first time about your powerful testimony that you’ll be sharing more in just a minute. But first, because you wear multiple hats, including being an EMDR trauma therapist, would you please tell the audience what is an EMDR trauma therapist? Well, that’s a good question. EMDR is just a form of therapy. There’s many different techniques that we use. And this technique, what I love about it impacts a part of the brain, the same part of the brain that trauma lives in. So, we have this little piece of our brain called the amygdala. And it’s a subconscious part of our brain. We don’t know what’s hidden in there, but it stores memories that are associated with strong emotions. So, trauma included. And we, you know, we often hear people talk about trauma and triggering in kind of strange ways. You know, like my teenage kids would come home and say, you know, lunch at school was bad today. I was so traumatized. That’s not trauma. That’s drama. And but triggering is actually a real thing, too. So, trauma lives in this amygdala part of our brain. And when something reminds that subconsciousness of the trauma we’ve experienced, it releases all the same hormones and endorphins and chemicals in our brain that happened at the time of the trauma. So we re-experience all the same emotions and it brings those memories out sometimes like flashbacks and we can just re-experience the whole same trauma. And so when we do EMDR therapy, we’re accessing that amygdala and trying to calm those triggers. We replace those trigger the emotions with some softer emotions. So when we’re triggered, it’s not it’s not so impactful. And that doesn’t tell you what EMDR is, but that’s why we do EMDR for trauma.

Yes. That makes me think about, you know, even in any kind of loss or trauma, like when I lost my husband, I could have used some of that therapy really because you do and it’s nothing like the assault kind of trauma, but you still things trigger. That makes so much sense. Thank you. Thank you, Lisa. And I actually learned something new from every single one of my guests. So that’s very very interesting. And I know Lisa,

You walked a horrific journey in life. And I like to call your story actually from victim to victor. You were going to college in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, a freshman. In fact, intending to study to become a music teacher.

But something happened when you were a freshman that changed you, your career, and everything else in your life. Lisa, would you please share the event that eventually led you to go from wanting to be a music teacher to becoming a licensed counselor, a trauma therapist, and writing a book?

You know, I think all of us experience trauma in life. Not all of us experience a big T trauma where it’s life-altering or life-threatening. But I did experience one of those big T traumas. I was 18 years old. I was so excited to be where I was and studying music and making friends. Everything was going great until one morning. I was sleeping alone in my residence hall room and I woke up. Something woke me up. I wasn’t sure what it was, but when I finally kind of things came into focus, there was a man in a ski mask crouched by my bed. And he it was terrifying. And by the time that morning was over, I had been nearly suffocated, knifed, and raped.

So that definitely changed the course of my life in ways that I never could have anticipated. I did leave the music program. I actually studied political science after that. I was going to be a prosecuting attorney and put masked men behind bars. And when I got out of college, I went to work for a law firm, doing a clerkship before I started law school. And during that summer, a three-month summer, I realized I learned that only about a half a percent of rapists were going to jail. And all I could think was, as long as they’re walking free, we’re going to need counselors. And so, before law school started, I enrolled in graduate school and dropped out of law school. And became a counselor.

Wow. I’m so so sorry that you went through that horrific time, but I’m so thankful that you are the victor. You’re sitting here right now getting ready to share how trauma victims can grow and heal. And what better way to give that devil a black eye. It backfired. I mean, they messed with the wrong woman. Lisa, that’s

But Lisa, authorities contacted you years later and said they were reopening your case. I think your book said 35 years later.

Wow. Can you please share what happened when your case was reopened? Cuz I know they never found who it was until later on, but what happened when they reopened the case and how did you emotionally navigate that? How did God get you through that?

Yeah. So, for 35 years, I have to say I was not walking victoriously. After the event happened, I really didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t I went to counseling a couple of times, thought that was good enough, and I just never processed my own trauma. I walked with others through processing their trauma, but I never did my own. I thought I would just stick it on a shelf in the back of my mind and never think about it again. So, 35 years later, of course, he had a ski mask on, so there was no way to recognize him. My case was closed real soon. But 35 years later, somebody called the police and identified the man in the ski mask. And so my cold case was reopened. That’s when I experienced that triggering that I talked about where the amygdala just hijacks your brain. And it was like I was 18 years old again. I remembered every detail. I could feel the feels and smell the smells and it was just as if it had just happened. So at first I didn’t handle it well. I kind of fell apart. But God is good and this time around I did get the help that I needed. I did see a forensic psychologist. I included my family. I had never even told my adult children what had happened to me. It was just a thing of the past. And so navigating that was a process. It involved a lot of hard work. And healing is possible even when we don’t get a happy ending. But it takes some work. We do. We don’t get over trauma. We have to get through it.

And so 35 years later, I was willing to walk through it and it just made so much difference in my life. Then God could use it for a purpose.

You know, I always say God doesn’t purpose for us to experience trauma. We live in a fallen world, but he can use all things for his purposes.

That’s absolutely true. Absolutely true, Lisa. And one thing that I wanted to ask you, and this is out of sheer curiosity on my part, when they discovered who your attacker was, like do you mind me asking, did it end up being someone you knew? And the reason why I asked this is because I read that 93% of sexually assaulted children are assaulted by someone they know, not a stranger, and even someone in their family. And I was just wondering if this is true actually for adult sexual assault victims. Were you surprised by who it was? I guess is what I was wondering. You don’t need to say, but I’m just wondering.

No, that was my worst fear was that it would be somebody that I knew.

And praise God it was not. It was it was somebody that it was just a blitz. He had come into the residence hall and I don’t know how I was the chosen one, but somehow he ended up in my room.

And that is unusual. In fact, most adult rape cases are date rape or somebody that they that they know. Also,

I was really grateful that it wasn’t that because I think that complicates things even further.

This was not somebody that I ever knew or had a relationship with. So when it came to forgiveness, I didn’t have to worry about reconciliation. I had never had a relationship with them before. So I was really grateful that it was not someone.

I can very very small way can relate a little bit about the emotions of a trauma victim, what they might go through because when I was about 25 years old, I had a Peeping Tom break into our home and I was already married at the time

And the perpetrator didn’t take anything of value. The police said it was a crime of someone who wasn’t interested in my things, but were more interested in making contact with me. And I kept telling my husband at the time that I felt like I was being watched and but he didn’t take anything. And I still remember the feeling of violation of never discovering who it was cuz they got fingerprints galore but they didn’t know who it was cuz whoever it was hadn’t committed a crime or wasn’t in the database yet. And I was so angry at first. Ooh, how dare they? And then it turned to fear because my mind was always suspicious of certain people when the police said, “Well, it could be someone you knew. It could be a stranger that followed you from a store, could be a neighbor, could be.” So your mind goes crazy and they said, “Don’t go home for about a month or two.” And I tell you this because I have just a very very tiny bit of emotion of maybe what a trauma victim I’m not even sure mine qualifies for the little T that you talk about.

No, that actually qualifies as a big T trauma. And that’s something important,

Because so often,

Almost always, when clients come to me, they’ll tell me they’ve had no trauma in their life. And then they’ll start to tell me horrific trauma stories. And what we tend to do is minimize our own trauma. And it’s for self-protection. You know, we don’t want to believe. I figured mine was no big deal. I was never talking about it again. No one else was talking about it. And we all tend to say, you know, ours was just a little bitty trauma. And the fact is the trauma you’ve experienced is the worst thing you’ve experienced. And your brain is going to handle that trauma just like everybody else’s trauma. So it’s really important to not minimize and to acknowledge those traumas in life because otherwise we don’t walk through them. In your book, you mentioned that no one is immune from trauma or loss and that sooner or later we’ll all suffer trauma or loss. And that’s so very true. And trauma always involves loss of some kind which leads to grief. But you also refer to post-traumatic stress disorder as PTSI. Can you tell us what PTSI is and how does that term help us to get a better understanding of trauma and trauma recovery?

Yeah, so when we make a diagnosis in mental health, we use something called the DSM-5 and it gives us codes just like a doctor uses codes for different illnesses. And right now the only diagnosis for trauma is post-traumatic stress disorder. And there are many of us in the field who would like to see that change to post-traumatic stress injury. And the reason for that is when I think of a disorder, I think of something that I mean a disorder means something’s not working right in our brain, right? Or it might be something that we are born with that’s treatable but not curable. And we know that post-traumatic stress symptoms are not the result of a disorder. They’re a result of an injury. It’s the brain’s normal response to abnormal situations. So we would like to see it change to injury first of all because when we do scans of the brain after trauma that amygdala that I talked about that subconscious part of the brain actually grows and the part that goes over the amygdala is called the hippocampus that’s the rational part that kind of keeps things in check. It shrinks. So we’ve actually had a an injury to our brain when we experience big T trauma or even chronic little T trauma will do the same thing. So right now I think mostly to remove stigma we would like it to be called an injury because that’s what it is. And then when I think about the military, you know, if you’re in the military and let’s say you’re too close to an explosive and you rupture your eardrum, that’s an injury. And so you get a purple heart because you’ve been injured in combat. If you come home with post-traumatic stress disorder, that’s not considered an injury. And there’s no purple heart. There’s no recognition. We really need to recognize our troops that experience that kind of an injury.

That makes so much sense. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I’m blessed and thankful that I’m not able to relate to many kinds of that kind of trauma, but I got to say I loved the story about your pear tree. It explained the trauma in a way that many of us can understand. So speaking of your pear tree, would you please share the story of your beautiful pear tree and analogy to trauma recovery?

Yeah, the pear tree is threaded throughout the book and that’s done intentionally because I wanted people who are still maybe experiencing the crisis of post-trauma to be able to read this and it’s soft. It’s not going to re-trigger you in many ways. There’s some hard information in there, but the tree is what we use to soften it. And the tree is a true story. When my husband and I got married, we were blending a family and some people gave us something called a new Bradford pear. It’s an ornamental pear tree. It’s not a Bradford pear, which has some issues with it. It was something that was a hybrid tree that was it was just beautiful. And we kind of saw it as the representation of blending this family together and we were going to see this thing grow and blossom and everything was going to be all great. And after we planted it was in the shade of this ugly big pine tree and my husband decided to cut the pine tree down and it landed on the pear tree and we were left with, you know, a really straight trunk of this tree and two sticks sticking out of it. And I was convinced that tree was not going to survive. But what we learned over time was the tree was created with everything it needed to survive. It was created with a taproot. The first root that grows from the seed is what anchors that tree to the ground for the rest of its life. And then as it goes through hardships, storms and wind, you know, windy seasons, it grows deeper and deeper roots so that it can access the nourishment that it needs. And we’re created much the same way.

So I always talk about that the taproot would be like the nature part of what the strengths were born with. And the deep roots are the nurture part. Those are the things that we develop as we grow and our needs are met.

That’s beautiful. Many Christians have, and I say Christians because as Christians, we’re told by the Lord to forgive. Many Christians have misconceptions about forgiveness in general. Some feel forgiving means it condones the wrong or that the perpetrator got away with the wrong or they just don’t feel that they can forgive or even want to.

So Lisa, in a trauma situation, it seems that forgiving the perpetrator would be almost impossible if that perpetrator especially is not repentant. But is forgiveness necessary when the perpetrator is not repentant? And what does forgiveness look like in that kind of a situation?

Yeah. Forgiveness is not I think what we our go-to definition is. It’s not saying it’s okay that you did that. I forgive you. It’s okay. We can be friends. I don’t want to be friends with that perpetrator. I have met him and I pray for him, but I don’t want a relationship with him for obvious reasons and he’s not repentant. But forgiveness is really for us.

It’s saying, “I’m not going to hold on to all the emotions and all of the hurt and the pain that I’ve experienced for the rest of my life. I’m going to let those go and let God deal with those. It’s a way of finding freedom in the midst of pain. And I think a lot of it is just letting go and it is not condoning the behavior. And it’s also not one and done. I always say I mean I had a profound experience where forgiveness began for me. And I can say today I have forgiven him and I’m hoping that tomorrow I can say again that today I’ve forgiven him and the next day and the next day. It’s a process. I do think that is another misconception is I think people feel like okay I said I forgive them but I don’t feel any different. Well like you said Lisa it’s a process. It’s a it’s a continual. So thank you for sharing that. And the feeling of hopelessness is very common following trauma. Victims are left with the feeling of what has been done cannot be undone. And it’s difficult to see how the pain will ever end. But in your book, you talk about trauma with a big T. Now, would you explain to our audience what trauma being twofold? Big T or little T. And what does that mean? What are the differences?

Yeah, big T trauma is something that where your life is endangered or changed drastically. It could be experiencing a huge natural disaster, a violent crime, witnessing something horrific and graphic. That they’re the big T traumas that when we think of trauma, that’s what we think of. But not and not everybody experiences big T trauma, but we have we all experience little T traumas. And so that’s just it’s bad stuff that happens where your life is not threatened. It’s not life-altering necessarily, although incrementally it can be. So when I think about like child abuse where the child’s life is not in danger, but this is a chronic little T trauma, it impacts the brain the same way one big T trauma does. So little T traumas could be divorce, it could be loss of income,

You know, if you lose a job and change in identity. Those are all traumas also and they’re more complicated than one thing. You know, if you lose a job, that’s going to impact your identity. It’s going to impact your finances. It’s going to impact your family. There’s more than one trauma tied up in that little T trauma. So although we acknowledge a difference in those traumas, chronic little T trauma does the same thing to the brain as one big T trauma.

So all that you’re saying, Lisa, is so absolutely interesting and also I found it very interesting that when you talk about post-traumatic growth in your book,

Yeah. Would you please define and describe the concept of post-traumatic growth and how you know having Christ at the center of your life really makes a difference in this process?

It does. Post-traumatic growth is something that has been studied by Tedeschi and Calhoun and they did a pretty extensive study on do people grow after trauma and you know we often hear the words whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and one of the things that they disproved was that it doesn’t about 60% of people find a way to grow through trauma but about 40% they’re just damaged by it and so they did this study to see you know what are the evidence evidences of post-traumatic growth. And they came up with five things. The first one is a greater appreciation for life. We start to be more grateful for things in life and prioritize the things that we know are good in life because we’ve been we’ve experienced the bad, so we’re going to appreciate the good that much better. The second thing is our relationships with others change. We start to grow closer to those people that are healthy in our lives and we start to prune out the relationships that u maybe are not so healthy and just prioritize the good. The third thing they came up was that we see new possibilities in life. You know, if I can survive this, I can survive anything. And so we’re more willing to take risks and try new things in life and follow our dreams. So that’s kind of a fun part of the growth. Another one is personal strength. And I always say the sweetest byproduct of acknowledging personal strength is optimism.

When we realize we were strong enough to get through that storm, were optimistic, more optimistic that we can handle anything in life. But the fifth point is where science points to God. And I love this. They found that there was a spiritual change. And when there’s spiritual change, that’s evidence of growth. When people pray and realize that they need to rely on a higher power, they grow much more strongly than if they don’t have that in their life.

And I’m my understanding is there were some scientists that wanted that final point removed from the study. And Tedeschi and Calhoun came back with their evidence and said there it cannot be removed. It is a part of growth.

Well, that is so amazing. And as you’re naming those off, I got my checklist. I’m like, “Yep, that happened. Yep, that the reason I’m relating in my and I’m talking about the loss of my husband.” So, that’s where I’m relating with that issue. But I’m hoping our listeners are making that list as well because that is so absolutely true. Thank you for that. And Lisa, I asked this next question for myself and hopefully the listeners. In your book, you talk about people saying the wrong thing to trauma victims. Maybe triggering which is a concern of mine even on this podcast I think I share with you. I don’t want to say anything that’s going to trigger anybody,

But what can someone like myself say to comfort someone who has just gone through a very traumatic assault and they’re asking where was God? The big why question because I really don’t feel the answer for a trauma victim would be the same for others by quoting Romans 8:28, all things work together for good, right? What advice can you give us about how to comfort someone in that kind of a situation?

That is such a complicated question,

But I love it.

This is something I wanted to ask you.

It’s such a good question because I always go back to the book of Job when people ask me that question. You know, what do I do when I’m dealing with somebody who’s experienced trauma? Job had trauma on trauma on trauma, right? I mean, just horrific big T trauma after big T trauma. And his friends did come to comfort him. And at first, they did exactly the right thing. They sat with him and they said nothing. They just were there. And sometimes, I think in the immediate aftermath, the best thing we can do is just be there.

We don’t have to say a whole lot. And when we try too hard to think of things, we’ll probably step on something wrong. But the thing is his friends then went on to do the wrong thing the longer they sat with him and I think this is what we naturally do is they started thinking well what did he do wrong so that this won’t happen to me

Right we start to think about ourselves and I don’t want to experience this and we start looking for fault in the person that has experienced the trauma and

There’s no fault there’s no fault and so keep those concerns to yourself

And just be there for them

And also I find sometimes s people are anxious to fix you and so they’ll say things like, “Oh, you’re going to get through this.” And you know, again, they’re trying to be helpful, but I understand what you’re saying. Very, very true. I love the I love the saying, “Your ministry is found where you’ve been broken.” And that’s true with you, Lisa. And your testimony is found where you’ve been restored, which is also true for you. So if we can just remember in our brokenness that as we walk through it that God can bring good out of it. And I know like you share the story of Joseph, what the devil meant for evil. God meant for good.

And throughout your book, Lisa, you highlight Psalm 27:13 and it says, “I remain confident of this. I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” Why is this verse so meaningful to you? You know, when this when my cold case first reopened, all I wanted to do was run away. I didn’t know where I wanted to go. I just wanted to be alone. And so, my lovely husband helped me pack my bags, put them in my car, and said, “You don’t have to tell me where you’re going. Just let me know you’re safe when you get there.” And I found myself going back to the scene of the crime. And that was the first scripture verse that I wrote down as I started to journal. And I was convinced that I seeing the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living meant I was going to get the two things I wanted most. I was going to get justice in this lifetime and I was going to get closure in this lifetime. And I was so wrong.

I did not get justice. There’s, you know, I work on legislation now to change things because there are some gaps in our laws that make it nearly impossible to prosecute rapists. And so he never did go to jail. He’s considered innocent to this day. And I don’t think we get closure in this lifetime. I think we get closure after we’ve lived life.

And so, so I was very wrong. But what I did learn after journaling for about a year and I this I’m very right-brained. I thought it’d be cathartic if I wrote with white ink on black paper because life was upside down and inside out. And so I did that for about a year. And after that year, I went back and read through the journal, and I realized that even though things didn’t happen the way I thought they were going to, together, he and I had written a bright future on those dark pages.

And what I learned is that no matter what we’ve experienced in life, his goodness is all around us. I often talk about, you know, walking on a seashore. And this actually happened when I was at that retreat that you and I met at. I was walking on the beach and one morning and I noticed everybody was looking for shells and sharks teeth and our eyes were just trained on the shoreline, right?

And as I was walking I thought, you know, this is the ocean’s wasteland. Every piece of shell we find has experienced some life-ending trauma. This is just the wasteland. The life that’s teeming is out in the ocean. And at some point we need to, you know, there’s beauty in the brokenness of those shells, but at some point we need to look up from the trauma and look out to where life is because there is goodness out there.

Absolutely. Well, that actually leads me to this next issue about when you talk about reaching beyond ourselves because I know in my grief, reaching out helped me immensely beyond my pain. And you emphasize the importance of looking beyond ourselves as a step toward healing. Why is outward focus so crucial to the recovery process? Is it to help you get your eyes off of the shells? Is that I’m assuming why? I think at first and I see this as a long process too. When a trauma happens, we definitely turn inward because we are in pain, we’re in trauma, we’re in crisis, and our focus has to become on ourselves for a moment, right? And I think there are seasons and when we can start looking up and remembering, you know what, I have a friend that maybe needs something from me today or maybe my church could use some kind of service right now. It starts to get our attention off of the trauma and off of the crisis. So that’s a real sign that healing is beginning. But when you look at all of the seasons, what we ideally want to get to is that season where I know what this felt like and I can help others. And I think of 2 Corinthians 1:3-4. You know, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion

And the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others in any trouble with the same comfort that we’ve received from God. And when you think about that there, that’s a call to action. It doesn’t just say God’s going to comfort you. It says he’s going to comfort you so that you know how to comfort others. And I think that, you know, I almost see that as not a mandate, but a call to action. You know, once we’ve exceeded that comfort, we are able to sow into others. And I think that’s something God wants us to do.

And I think ultimately that’s when we know we’re healed, when we can sow into others that same comfort that we’ve received. And something important to remember is you have to receive the comfort first.

You can’t jump in and start doing this before you know how you are comforted and how you were healed.

Yeah. Because you do more damage to yourself and to the person you’re trying to help.

Absolutely. And I’ve Lisa I’ve lo I’ve logged multiple quotes from your book that I think would be very helpful for people who’ve gone through trauma. Anything that might cause us pain or suffering. But you say in your book, finding purpose and suffering is where healing is found. And that is so true. And I want to say another quote just so listeners will know the depth that they can find in your book. One more quote you said is the three things victims desire most. Justice, closure, and purpose. But I read on your website that only 25 out of a thousand rapists ever go to prison. So it is hard to get closure on that kind of trauma. But you give hope to trauma victims because you say and teach that healing can be attained even when the world offers no happy ending. And that is so true. And for our listeners, you’ve got to get Lisa’s book, The Trauma Tree. It is excellent. So if you would like to tell us a little bit about where they can find your book.

Yeah, it’s pretty much available anywhere you could get books. Online and my website is lisasaruga.com and if you go to that website it’ll ask for your email and if you give your email it’s going to send you two things it’s going to send you a playlist of music that goes with the book that’s just very soothing and encouraging words from God and it’ll also give you the journaling techniques that I used when I ran away to write that brighter future because journaling can be very therapeutic, but it can go south fast if you’re not including God’s voice in it. So, it’s just some simple tips for how to how to hear from God as you journal about your trauma. Just very healing. But also available on the website. I have designed my own write a brighter future journals. So, there are black page journals with white ink available if you think that might be helpful for you too.

That is I just I just want to get it to see what it’s like. So, thank you. Thank you, Lisa. So, listeners, if you or someone you know has experienced trauma, this will be one of the best books that you can read. And for even event planners, or anyone that would like to schedule you for a speaking event, Lisa, they can also do that through your website, I’m assuming.

Great, great, great, great. And Lisa, you have shared some powerful information with us today, and there’s no doubt that your words are going to resonate deeply with many, especially those who have experienced assault type of a trauma and feel that their lives are just hopeless. And I want to thank you for what you’re doing to help trauma victims. You turned what was meant for evil into being used for good by the Lord. And I pray the Lord continues to use you in your in the state and federal legislative programs. And he certainly is using you to reach the hearts of ladies who many of us cannot relate to. So, thank you so much, Lisa. May his blessings be on you and your family and your ministry. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for joining me today on COMPASS in the Storm. I hope you received hope and encouragement for your journey. Throughout the scriptures, we read that whenever Jesus arrived on the scene, everything changed. No matter how difficult the circumstances were, when Jesus showed up, the lives of broken and bruised people changed forever. Romans 5 tells us, “Just as sin entered the world through one man who sinned,” speaking of Adam, “So also is it by one man that our sins are forgiven,” speaking of Jesus. Jesus freely sacrificed his life on the cross and rose from the grave for each of us. And in turn, we are given the opportunity to live life with more meaning. Or as scripture says, more abundantly. For those of you listening who have unfortunately experienced the kind of trauma that my guest Lisa spoke about today or any other trauma that has caused you pain and suffering, I want to encourage you to reach out and share your heart with Jesus. Ask him to be your Lord and Savior and to be present in your life. Because just as one person may have wronged you and caused you such horrible pain, so it is by the one who loves you most, Jesus, that you can receive the healing your heart and mind so desperately need today. When you invite Jesus into your life, friend, it will change everything. Let me pray for you. Father in heaven, I ask in the name of Jesus, the one who shed his blood for me and each one who is listening, that you would minister to every hurting heart today. May they feel your presence even as we pray. May they reach up to you and find rest in their spirit from the pain that was caused in their lives. Thank you, Lord, for loving us. Thank you for the healing you provide our hearts. I ask that your power and presence touch each heart and create a hunger for more of you, God. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen. God bless you, my friend. Thank you for listening. I hope you’ll join us next time. And remember, stay the course.