a time to keep…

As Solomon wrote in Ecclesiates 3, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…” I am grateful for the current season of rejoicing in which I find myself. With the release of Known, we celebrated with a huge launch party, and I was able to share how God is moving. Below are the words I spoke to those who came to join me in celebration. At least, this is the script I intended to follow! When I speak, I never follow my notes word-for-word, but here is a very close approximation. I invite you to read along and celebrate with me as well!

Known: A Study of the Good Shepherd book release party:

First of all, a huge thanks to each one of you for being here to celebrate with us. Many of you have said, “I’ve never been to a book release party!” Well, neither have I! I don’t know how book parties go, but at this one, we just want to celebrate what God is doing.

God has been so kind to allow me to take part in this particular work. Though I’m celebrating today, He placed the idea for this study on my heart when I was at the absolute lowest point in my life. My pregnancy with John, who is now 10, was physically challenging and I spent the last couple of months of it in a wheelchair. I then sustained an injury during delivery that confused doctors and physical therapists for years, until finally, in God’s perfect time, He placed two specialists on the scene to radiologically discover a tear in the cartilage of my hip joint and to surgically operate on it. My recovery from surgery was longer than expected, however, and persistent pain after a year and a half led us to the Cleveland Clinic, where a sports medicine specialist discovered another problem compounding the first. This one was also a complication of labor and delivery. Another year and a half of treatment passed, and I was slowly beginning to participate in hiking, biking and dynamic aerobic activity, and I knew I was on the right path to healing. I praise God for that healing!

I give you that back story, though, because it was the years of chronic pain and stressful life circumstances that led up to the lowest point to which I just alluded. Despite being on the upswing physically, I was emotionally taxed and suddenly found myself in a deep clinical depression. My depression was coupled with anxiety, which kept me awake most nights. It was during one of these emotionally charged sleepless nights that I silently prayed the 23rd psalm over and over.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.

He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

 I will fear no evil, for you are with me;

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

I groaned and pleaded in the quiet of my bed, telling God I just could not endure another moment of the agony. That might sound dramatic to you if you have never dealt with anxiety or depression—it would have sounded dramatic to me before I experienced it for the first time in my mid-30s—but it was the reality I felt. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit was whispering that my feelings were not reality, and He gave me work to do.  This work. Write a Bible study about the Lord as my shepherd, using the framework of Psalm 23.

So that is what I did. I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing, but each morning, when I woke far too early because of the anxiety, I met with the Lord and meditated over Psalm 23 and scripture passages that correlated to it. He led me to create Known, which is an exegetical Bible study poetically based on Psalm 23, where we look at the individual verses and dig deeply into other passages throughout scripture that attest to the attributes of God that we discover in the psalm. Through this work, the Lord graciously lifted me out of my despair and showed me just how intimately He knows me and loves me. My prayer is that every person who works through this book will better come to understand how deeply and irrevocably God loves and knows each one of us.

As you celebrate with us here today, please rejoice in the work God is doing in each one of our lives—yours included. He gives every one of us unique gifts and talents. I suspect that most of you do not enjoy studying for hours on end, that reading Biblical commentaries and academic texts sounds like the biggest bore of all time to you—but that is exactly what I love to do as I wrap my mind around God’s Word! Instead, He gave you other gifts—passion for social justice, talent in teaching, gifts of music and song and other beautiful expressions of art, minds built for science or engineering. The list goes on and on. I encourage you to use those unique gifts to spread God’s glory  throughout the earth. That is the greatest work you can do! May we celebrate one another today!

As I close out, I have so many people to thank. My biggest thanks, of course, goes to the Lord. I thank my family—especially Brian, for helping to make this dream a reality. I thank my children, Scarlett, Luke and John. You are the greatest gifts God has given to me. I will always be an imperfect mother, but I pray that my unconditional love for you trumps all mistakes that I make along this journey and that above all, my life points you to the Lord. I thank my amazing parents, Paul and Kathy Driscoll, who have always been my greatest champions, from the time I was a tiny thing. I did not understand the depth of your love for me until I had a child of my own. What a beautiful gift from God! I also thank my incredible in-laws, Luke and Terri Derhake, who have become just as supportive as my own parents, loving me as if I were their own child. Terri also helped throw this amazing party and handled the food and drinks!

In terms of the party itself, Shay McGill devoted a huge amount of time to helping me decorate. These gorgeous flower arrangements are the work of her hands. Jenn Nickel, dear friend and confidant and partner in ministry, whom you just heard speak, helped with planning as well. Kirk Whitehouse, the most amazing guitar teacher ever, is performing the music today, and Daniel Montgomery gave me and Brian excellent coaching on how to throw a book launch party!

Daniel was also one who endorsed the book. He and Mandy have provided us with Godly counsel throughout various seasons, especially in our early years of marriage. Publishing would not have happened without Rob Plummer saying, Hey Lisa, this is really good, would it be okay for me to send it off to a couple contacts I have in the publishing world? And then Gregg Allison chasing it up with another publisher when the first two passed on it. Because of Gregg’s recommendation, Christian Focus Publications picked it up, and it has been wonderful working with them. Gregg’s wife Nora, a precious friend and mentor, listened to my very first ideas about the book and gave me advice and encouragement along the way. Rob, Gregg, and Nora all provided beautiful endorsements as well.

Way back in my early twenties, Brian baptized me at Southeast Christian Church, where Bob Russell was the lead pastor. It was under his teaching that I truly began to understand the Gospel and my life was changed. I was so honored when Bob also took the time to review the study and endorse it. Finally, an old friend through Brian’s sister and through Sojourn, Jesse Eubanks, founder of the non-profit Love Thy Neighborhood, as well as it’s incredibly successful podcast of the same name, also graciously endorsed Known.  My friends Tracy Cornish, Brooke Ervin, Terri Derhake, and Nora Allison read it before it ever landed in a publisher’s inbox, and their feedback was invaluable. Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you.

Though I don’t have time to go through every name of all the amazing people who have shaped my life for the better, I want to give a shout out to the women I know and love through Sojourn Women, and now those I am getting to know through Southeast, the CBS community that blessed me for years, our HLS family, Ashley Wilson and her summer Bible study group, and our close family, friends and neighbors. To my girlfriends who have offered a shoulder to cry on, thank you. All of you have helped to make this endeavor possible. I leave you with this one, amazing truth: God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good.

This is certainly a time to keep.