Standing on God’s Promises in the Dark - Lisa Appelo - Revival of Hope 2026

This is a woman who very cute pants, by the way. I like those. And the thing is we pay extra for all the cuts. I like that. So listen, she's going to tell you that God is good even when it doesn't feel good. And what she went through is probably as a wife and a mother, all of our nightmares. But God was so good and got her through it. And she's going to help us today understand how God can help you get through the hardest times of your life. And the enemy is going to lie to you as you go through whatever it is you're going through. That river, that pain, that desert. And she's got an article in our magazine that actually I was just laughing at how God works things out. I didn't even know she was in this one. Julie, who spoke last night, is in this one. C.J. Wilson, who's speaking tonight, is in this one. So this is a great one to grab today. And they're free. They're in English and in Spanish, but she's got five lives from the enemy. He's going to whisper to you in the darkness. He's going to whisper to you in the pain. And so she might not discuss these today, but they're in here. So make sure that you get that. Lisa, my God, bless your words. Thank you. All right.

So happy to be with you, Greenville. Wow. I hail from Florida. So from one human spot to another, I don't know who wins. Who wins the award for most community, although it feels wonderful now, right? Now that we're getting into some fall weather. Well, I am delighted to be with you. I am delighted to share with you some of what God has done in my life. Not because it's a story about Lisa Applo. It absolutely is not is the story about God who showed himself so faithful when life fell apart from me. You know, I have known God for a long time. I have known him since I was eight years old, sitting on a pew in a church that my grandparents planted. And I have known him perfectly. I haven't walked with him perfectly, but he has been consistent. He has been consistently in my life. Somewhere in my 10 years, you know, I started out at eight years old just with that childlike faith, wanting to know, knowing that I needed a savior somewhere in my 10 years, I rebelled, right? And but God called me back. And when I came back by late high school, I was fully committed. I was all in. I wanted to know the Lord and I wanted to live for him. You know, late high school had another significant event for me. Danny Appelow. And he was, for the longest time, he had been another boy in, you know, across the room. I had known him since seventh grade, but he was just another boy. But by high school, we were in a tight knit group of friends. And he and I were really becoming good friends.

We were in youth group together. We were in high school together. And he was this, he was a surfer. He was this tall, lanky missionary kid who was affable even then. And charismatic in a way, not in a way that he could work a room, but in a way that he could make you feel like the most important person in the room. And I could see that even in 11th grade. Well, as churches do, we had a youth fellowship after church one Sunday down in the basement. And Dan was going to bring a visitor. So he did bring this visitor and she had long blonde hair like way down past her waist. And word was that she had just won the Miss Hawaiian Tropic Bikini Contest. So I was like, you know what, enough of this friend stuff. I think her mom was like wanting her to find a nice young man. I was like, enough of this friend stuff. And I put out the word that if Danny Appelow asked me out, I would say yes. And so by that Friday, I had a date with him to the high school football game. And it was my first date. It was my only boyfriend because we would end up getting married. You know, as he, I can still picture myself on the second floor in my bedroom. Looking out over our driveway as he pulled up for that date and thinking to myself, this is the first day of the rest of my life. I knew it would work. We had been good friends. I knew his character. I knew who he was. And in fact, I still have that plaid blouse. Plaid checked blouse. I wore that first day hanging in the back of my closet. I knew that that would be significant. Well, we continued on.

We went to college together. And, you know, I would not, we started our careers. We started our family. Dan wanted two kids. I had to make a deal to get to three. And then we had surprise four. And, you know, pivot in life number five. And I will tell you that we had a very intentional number six and number seven. So there we were. He was like five past his quota, right? But, you know, I would never paint these years as perfect. We went through struggles. We went through parenting struggles. We went through financial strain. We went through marriage issues that we had to work together. We went through tests of faith together. I would never paint those years as perfect. But they were the life that I wanted. It was the life that we had worked hard for. It was the life that, that perfect or not, it was the life that I would have loved to stay in. And by that summer of 2011, we were in a good place. I don't know if you've ever gone through some rocky places in your life. And you finally get to a season where you're like, wow, we're like, not like we've arrived, but we are in a good place. Stan was in a job after several frustrating years. In another job, he was in a job that he loved. Really his dream job.

And I as his wife loved watching him thrive. I was at home full time by this time, kind of the hub of the wheel, making sure everybody got where they needed to go, making sure there was food in the pantry and food on the table. Our kids at this time were four years old, 6, 12, 14, 17-- hold on, I missed one. Start over four, six, 12, 14, 16, 17, and 19. Our oldest had just gone to his first year of college. And I remember laying in bed thinking, I just have to do this six more times. And I am home free, right? So on an ordinary night, in the middle of June, it was actually Father's Day weekend. We had pizza together as a family. The kids went upstairs to bed. I had a big day the next day. I had a lot to do. And so I was turning in early. And I turned to Dan, who was doing some work for his mom on his laptop. And I said, I'm headed to bed. And he said, OK, I'll be there soon. And I said, good night to him. Like I had 1,000 other times. Somewhere in the dark morning hours of the next day, I woke to his funny breathing on the pillow next to mine. And I wasn't even awake enough to perceive what was happening. But I woke enough to instinctively reach my hand over and nudge him and say, it's just a nightmare, hun.

And I thought he would turn over. And we'd fall back asleep. And we'd wake up to his alarm in a couple hours. But he didn't turn over. And I woke up-- this happened in a matter of seconds. But as I woke up more, I jumped out of bed, turned on the overhead light, and could see immediately that something was very wrong. We never know what we'll do when crisis hits. I went into management mode. I went into crisis management mode. And as it happened, my kids, the air conditioner had broken upstairs, and so they had come down, and they had put their sleeping bags all in the living room right outside of our room. And my older kids had heard me crying out to Dan, and they had come into the room. And so I began to give directions. Nick, call 911. And Seth, run down and get our fireman neighbor. And Rachel, take the two little ones upstairs. Our daughter, who it's for, had crawled into bed sometime during the night, like she did every night. And she was laying in between the two of us, whisked her out of the room. And it was minutes before the paramedics came. They were right outside of our neighborhood. And so they were there within minutes. And I thought, OK, good. He is in good hands.

And they shished me out of the room as they do. And I can remember pacing, just pacing the living room, audibly crying out to the Lord. Lord have mercy on this. Lord have mercy on our family. While they took him by ambulance, and I went upstairs to see the kids before I left and followed. Still dark, I will never forget walking into my children's room. They were together in the boys' room. They were all huddled together on the floor, audibly sobbing. And I wanted to say, he's going to be OK. Like the mom and me wanted to say that to my kids. And so I did the only thing I could. I prayed with them and I said, "I will be back. "I will be back." And left for the hospital. And it was not long when I got after getting to the hospital that they took me into that room. Some of you have probably been in it. The room you never wanna go in, the consultation room. And a very kind ER doctor said they had done everything they could and they had never been able to revive Dan. And so there I was, no symptoms, no signs, no warning. I went to bed in one life and I woke up in another. I went to bed happily married, not perfectly married, but happily married and woke up a widow and a single mom to seven broken hearts. Every piece of our life felt shattered.

There are no scripts for these kinds of moments in life. These kinds of moments aren't even supposed to be in the script. I don't know if your mom ever did this, but my mom would get old towels when we had really abused them. They were past their time and she would snip them in the middle and then she would grab, put a hand on both sides and she would rip it into. And she was making rags. She would put another snip in and rip it until she had the size of rags that she wanted from this towel and I felt like that's what had happened to my life. God for sure makes two into one and over the years, over the struggles, over the good moments, over the shared memories, over the inside jokes, over the fights and the makeups and raising kids and dreams, he had woven two into one and it felt like I had just been ripped into and I was left with this raw dangling edge of pain. I had trusted God since I was eight years old, but I wondered would God of the Bible, the God that I had known those stories of David and Joseph and Moses and Paul, would God of the Bible be God for me in this? What has promises hold? You know, I was trying to shepherd my children through their grief and I was facing a mountain of my own. I was suddenly a single parent and so every responsibility

that we had shared was now on my plate. I wondered how in the world God would fix eight broken hearts, how would I raise these five boys to men and how would I raise these two girls to be women without their dad? What about our finances? We had been a one-income family and that income was now gone. I was overwhelmed in every way. I was overwhelmed with fear, with loneliness, with a pain that was palpable. You could, it felt like somebody had carved me from the inside out and I might have showed up at church and I was singing the songs. I was praising the Lord through it, but I carried a hollowed out pain with me everywhere I went. I was overwhelmed with decisions and I tasted despair for the first time wondering what my future looked like. In fact, if I could even have imagined my future, I didn't want it because he wasn't in it. Some people have a prayer closet. I have a minivan and I would get, my kids going, after the funeral, after everybody went back to their life, we homeschooled, of course it was summer, so I would get my kids started in the morning and then I would get away by myself in the minivan 'cause when that door shut, I could close out the world. Nobody came in to interrupt me.

Nobody put a note under the door and at is where I met with the Lord. Every single morning I needed him more than I needed food and I would open my journal. It was actually Dan's journal. I had pulled it off of his bedside table and I would write at the top for over a year. I wrote at the top in bold, all kept, underlined. I cannot do this. This is too hard. And then I would open the Bible and I was reading through the Bible for a year. It was the first time I had done it so I didn't have to go searching for scriptures. I would just read whatever that day's reading was and it never failed that God would meet me on the pages of scripture, whether I was in Leviticus or Psalms or Lamentations or Luke, God would remind me who he is that day. It wasn't enough for the week. I had to do it again the next day. But as I did that, as I did that process, I began to see in real time that God of the Bible was God for me. In countless decisions I was facing, I stood on James 1-5 more times than I can count. It says, "If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you." Let me tell you, I took that promise. In fact, I began to write promises in my journal like I was creating my own concordance. I needed to know God's promises, and I need to know that they held for me. I cannot tell you how many times I was trying to make a decision for my children, trying to make a decision for finances, trying to make a decision about the broken water heater, what to do with this car that just got total. All these decisions I was managing, how I would take it to the Lord, and He would answer so clearly. He is so practical. He is so personal,

and that is a promise we can take to the bank that when we need wisdom, it says we should ask, and He gives it generously. It will be given to us in the ache of loneliness each evening. Man, the times that I used, the quiet time I used to crave at night, I now dreaded. The kids would be upstairs, the big kids doing homework, the little ones asleep, and there I was facing this grief, this pain. It was in those times that I came to understand God's promise in 2 Corinthians 12, 9 that says, "His grace is sufficient." I really can't tell you how I made it through those nights. I can't tell you it was a three-step paradigm that I employed. All I can tell you was God's grace was sufficient night after night after night until it finally eased, until it finally was a little bit lighter. As I took on business matters that had been danced and that were now mine, or I handled the mid-light leaks, I can remember several times waking up, you know Florida rainstorms, right? Y'all have them, y'all have them here. Florida rainstorms are goalie washers. I can remember waking up several times in the middle of the night, not to the rain, but to the rain in my house. And there was a, we had an older roof and it was leaking, I had to get it patched, it would leak, I'd get it patched. And those, my boys would have to get up there and put tarps up. Man, as I handled all these things that were too much for me, I experienced God's promise in Isaiah 41-10. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. God's strength in my weakness. You know, when I cried myself to sleep or I would console my children through their tears, I found the God who's promised in 2 Corinthians 1-3, the Father of all comfort, who comforts us in all of our trouble. It is a promise and He comforts us. Each time God provided for our family, I mean, as I look back over these years and see again the very practical and personal ways He provided for our family, whether it was through a meal or a gift or a job or a scholarship, I saw the fulfillment of His promise in Philippians 4-19, "My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus." That night, as I paced my living room, I had cried out for God's mercy. I had begged, I had prayed my eyeballs out for it, and God had not answered the way I wanted, but He had lavished His mercy on us. He's been my wisdom. He's been my guide. He's been my protector. He's been my provider. He's been father to fatherless. Our peace that passes all understanding. I refuge in the storm. He has never left me, never forsaken me. He's gone before me. He's gone with me. He fights for me. He is for me.

He's been my counselor, my help, my healer, my rock, and my redeemer, and so much more. I would never choose, never, none of us would ever choose to go through the kinds of crises that we go through the kinds of heartache that we go through. None of us would sign up for it. None of us would choose it, right? I know many of you can say the same in your life, but here's the thing. If we never had pain, we would never know the comforter. If we never walked a valley, we would never know the shepherd who was with us in it. And if we never needed a rescue, we would never know the rescuer. Will God of the Bible be God for you? Absolutely. We can trust His promises. And the first one, as we're saying, you know, we can trust all of His promises. The first promise that we call on Him is found in Romans 10, 9. It says, "If you openly declare with your mouth "that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart "that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." And that's a call I made at eight years old. Little Lisa made that with all she knew of God at eight years old, but she could not possibly have known God who would get her through college. She could not possibly know God who would help her as a new mom of seven kids where she was like, could not do it.

She could not possibly have fabbened the God who would walk her through heartache and walk with her children. We don't just cry out to God once. We cry out to Him over and over and over, knowing that God of the Bible, God of David and Joseph and Moses and Paul is God of the Bible for us and that His promises will absolutely hold. I'm gonna pray. Heavenly Father, thank you. Thank you that where I stand right now, I can look back and I can see the fulfillment of so many promises, and yet I still hold promises that I'm waiting for, redemption and ultimate healing. Lord, thank you that you not only save us, but you sustain us, that you are with us. You have not plucked us out from the heart circumstances. You are with us in it. You fight for us. You are for us, your good is there. It has not stopped and started just as we sang Lord. It is there. Lord, we worship you. We thank you, we adore you. And today, Lord, we're reminded that you are God of the Bible for us. It's in your son's name, it's powerful and we pray, amen. - Thank you for watching our broadcast. Are you an incarcerated brother or sister who needs encouragement?

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