Lisa Harper

I was devastated my dad left us.

And you, when you're a little kid, I thought it must be at least partly my fault.

You know, I should have used my inside voice.

Right.

If I had just been better, I could have.

And he left for another woman and her child.

So that.

When you're a kid, you just think it does become a comparison thing.

And so when he talked about dad, our Heavenly Father wouldn't leave their kids, I thought, I've been praying for a dad like that.

And I was five years—they didn't have a children's church back then.

I'm 62.

So we sat on pews, those long wooden benches.

There's no cup holders, no coffee in the lobby.

And I'm holding on the back of the pew in front of me.

And it was one of the churches, and I love these churches, where they sing Just As I Am 52 times.

So somebody comes forward and we go to lunch.

They're not stopping to.

Somebody's got to come forward.

But I was scared because I was just a kid.

But the idea that God wouldn't walk away from me was so compelling that I walked an aisle as a five-year-old kid.