Lisa Harper
Lisa harper is a renowned author, bible teacher, and speaker known for her unique blend of humor, vulnerability, and deep biblical insight. she was born in texas in 1963 and grew up in mississippi. harper graduated from the university of mississippi.
Lisa Harper is a renowned author, Bible teacher, and speaker known for her unique blend of humor, vulnerability, and deep biblical insight. She was born in Texas in 1963 and grew up in Mississippi. Harper graduated from the University of Mississippi with a degree in English and later earned a master's degree in theological studies from Covenant Theological Seminary. Harper's career began as the director of Focus on the Family's women's ministry where she developed the Renewing the Heart conferences. She has also served on the board of directors for Proverbs 31 Ministries and was the women's ministry director at Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland, Washington. Harper has written several books, including "The Sacrament of Happy: What a Smiling God Brings to a Wounded World" and "Job: An Unlikely Story of Joy." She has been a featured speaker at conferences and events around the world, including the Women of Faith conferences. Harper is known for her engaging and insightful teaching style, which connects with audiences of all ages and backgrounds. She is passionate about helping people experience the love and grace of God and empowering women to live out their God-given purpose.
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Christian Author and Sexual Assault Survivor Lisa Harper Reveals What’s Missing from #MeToo Movement
Lisa Harper has built her career around ministering to women, guiding them through unimaginable circumstances and seemingly insurmountable pain. Now, in this #MeToo era, she sees herself as a “big sister” to those coming to terms with the sexual abuse they may have endured.
Harper’s story isn’t clear cut and her journey to where she is today could never have predicted the success her ministry now boasts. As a young woman, she endured consistent sexual abuse, lived in a home with an absent father and was raped as a college student.
The well-known Christian author and speaker told Faithwire she “can identify with the heart cry” of the women speaking out about the abuse they’ve faced, adding her “heart breaks for women who are just beginning to deal with their own pain.”
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As the “big sister in the house,” Harper cautioned the women coming forward in this season of reckoning from turning toward human repentance to “heal the deepest wounds in our soul.”
“What your soul’s really longing for isn’t the answers, it’s not even necessarily a punitive reckoning for the men who have been so abusive,” she said. “What your soul’s longing for is presence, it’s the presence of God.”
Though she’s thankful for the conversations taking place in the #MeToo era, Harper said it “grieves” her to see many women “are not running to God” but are instead being fueled by an “embittered” culture.
“You’re still not gonna find peace, even if your abuser is punished, because peace only comes with God,” Harper added.
Harper’s comments about the #MeToo movement come just days before the release of her newest work , “Who’s Your Daddy? Discovering the Awesomest Daddy Ever,” a children’s book she co-wrote with her daughter, Missy, whom she adopted from Haiti in 2014.
In the book, Harper, a single mother, chronicles a conversation she had with her 9-year-old daughter after one of her fellow classmates asked who her father was — a question for which Missy didn’t have an answer.
Harper had for years longed to be a mother, but the right relationship hadn’t worked out. So when she approached her adoption agency, she told her agent she was not interested in adopting a child who had “a good shot at a momma and a daddy, because I still believe … that’s the biblical template.”
But we live in an imperfect world with imperfect solutions.
Though she was uncertain about her decision to adopt earlier on in the process, looking back, Harper said she “totally scored” with Missy, whom she described as “the greatest kid since sliced bread.”
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“The only thing I can rest on is the sovereignty of God, the peace of God, the way God directed me to adopt this child,” Harper said of the criticism she sometimes faces as a single mother. “So stigma at this point just rolls off me like water on a duck’s back because it has been such a joy, such tangible grace, in being her mom, that I go, ‘You know what, I’m gonna walk the path God has for me.’”
“Who’s Your Daddy?” reminds readers that, regardless of the earthly fathers — or “skin daddies,” as Missy calls them — who might fail us or are absent in this life, we have a perfect Heavenly Father who loves us unconditionally.
“I don’t see [being married] as completing us, because of God being so sufficient, and really so accessible, as a father to the fatherless and a husband to the husbandless,” Harper said. “I rarely feel like we are two legs of a three-legged stool. I feel like we are a really wonderfully functioning family because of the presence of God.”
The book is available now for pre-order and releases Monday, Oct. 15.
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Lisa Harper
Lisa Harper is a popular inspirational speaker, Bible teacher, and author. She is the former director of the national women’s ministry at Focus on the Family, where she created the popular Renewing the Heart conferences. Among Lisa’s best-selling books are The Sacrament of Happy: What a Smiling God Brings to a Wounded World and Believing Jesus: Are You Willing to Risk Everything? She has also written a children's book with her daughter, Missy, entitled Who's Your Daddy?
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'We just fit': How adopting a child from Haiti changed everything for this mom
Christian author and speaker Lisa Harper has made a career out of bringing hope to women, many of whom are mothers. But Harper — a victim of childhood sexual abuse — says when it came to becoming a mom herself, she felt hopeless.
Harper spent much of her adult life struggling with the shame brought on as a result of her abusive childhood, and after finding herself single and in her forties, the Tennessee woman felt the desire to become a mother and began considering adoption .
"A woman at my church told me that, because I had been abused as a child, I would not be a good candidate to become a mother because I might transfer that trauma onto my child," said Harper, adding that the woman's words came as such a blow to her that she put her adoption application in an office drawer and adopted a dog instead.
"It was another seven years before I would start the adoption process because there was just enough of what she said that resonated with me because of the shame I felt," said Harper. "I was scared to death that I wasn't good enough."
Harper says after the death of her step-father, being diagnosed with skin cancer herself, and going through a bout of depression, she began to attend counseling. And, as she recovered and "got braver," she says felt a renewed call to help a child who couldn't help themselves.
Harper began moving through the process of two failed adoptions , the second of which came as a complete shock just one week before the baby was to be born.
"I was devastated by both losses," said Harper. "But I don't really have the words for how eviscerating that second loss was."
But Harper continued to search for the child she was meant to have, giving very specific instructions to her adoption agency.
"I said I wanted a kid nobody was standing in line for," remembered Harper. "I didn't say that because I'm sweet — I said it because I'm single and I believe kids deserve a momma and a daddy. So, I told my adoption agent, 'If there's a kid that doesn't have a shot at getting a mom and a dad and their only other option is dying in a third world orphanage, I'd love — as a fluffy, single mom in middle Tennessee — to be put into that equation.'"
At age 49, just weeks after her devastating adoption loss, Harper received a voicemail from a friend who had just returned from the village of Neply, Haiti.
"She said a young mom in the village had died of AIDS while she was there and left behind a two-and-a-half-year-old girl who was diagnosed with HIV, had cholera and probably had tuberculosis," said Harper. "The doctors in Port-au-Prince had said she would die within the next two months, and she said, 'Lisa, will you pray about this?'"
"I called her back and said, 'Nope. I've been praying about this for 30 years. Sign me up.'"
It was then that Harper learned the little girl's name — Missy.
"She was two-and-a-half and she maybe wasn't going to make it," said Harper. "She was really, really sick and that was all I really knew."
Six weeks later, Harper was in Haiti , meeting her daughter.
"Once Missy wrapped her little hand around my finger and said, 'Hello, Mama Blanc,' which means White Momma, I was ready to do anything for her," Harper recalled. "I just fell in love with her from the beginning but I was so scared because she was so sick."
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It took almost two years of paperwork, visits to Missy's Haitian orphanage and waiting, but in April 2014, when Missy was four years old, Harper traveled to Haiti to bring Missy home to Nashville, Tennessee.
Today, Missy is a thriving, healthy 8 year old, whose HIV is undetectable in her blood. Missy has no scarring on her lungs from her bout with tuberculosis, nor does she have liver damage from having cholera. Missy's doctors tell Harper her daughter's health is a miracle.
"She needed modern medicine, she needed clean water and she needed a whole lot of love," said Harper. "She is an amazing little warrior and we just fit together like a hand in a glove. She is happy, vibrant and just an amazing kid."
Harper says becoming a mother in her fifties has been easier than she imagined, something she credits to Missy's resilient personality.
"She does not have a shadow of that orphan spirit on her," said Harper. "I grew up in America and I struggled with feeling like an orphan and feeling unwanted for decades. Through adopting her and seeing her grow — I feel like I'm the one who got healed in the process."
"She's like a flower that's bloomed from cement — I added a lot of love to it, but she is just a little survivor and once she tasted joy and love, it's like she just shot up and hasn't stopped growing since."
For Harper, it's an important part of her parenting to teach Missy to speak openly about her health, and being HIV positive.
"When I was a little girl, I thought, 'I can't tell on these men who have sexually abused me,'" said Harper. "It made me quiet for most of my adult life, but I think secrets make you sick and it is not Missy's fault that she has HIV, so I'll be darned if I'm going to saddle her with that."
Harper says she also has open conversations with her daughter about her birth mother and father, and the conditions in the village where she was born. In fact, portions of the proceeds from Harper's latest book, "The Sacrament of Happy," go toward building a four-acre community vegetable garden in Missy's village, where Harper and Missy volunteered their own time earlier this summer.
"Because of Missy, there's not just more love in our family — I feel like I have so many more opportunities to love the world around me."
Lisa Harper
Author and Speaker
A master storyteller and sought-after Bible teacher and author known for her authenticity, Lisa Harper's writing and speaking overflows with colorful pop culture references that connect the dots between the Bible and modern life. She combines sound scriptural exposition with relatable anecdotes and comedic wit. Lisa is a mother to Missy, who she adopted from Haiti.
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