Why This Story Hits So Hard

Announcer 0:01

It's time now to get the hell out of your life. A weekly broadcast with real people, sharing real struggles, and offering real hope. Today's show will encourage, inspire, and empower you to face life's challenges with a bold confidence and renewed hope. Now let's join our host, Ron Myers, the promoter.

Still Waters And The Mission

Ron Meyers 0:21

I'm on the road today, friends, in Pascagoula, Mississippi. My guest is alive because somebody died. A double lung transplant, a second chance, and today the clearest picture of grace you'll ever hear. Hello, my friends, and welcome to Get the Hell Out of Your Life. Real stories, real struggles, and real hope. This show is for people who may not go to church. Maybe you've been hurt by religion, disappointed by Christians, or you simply wonder if God still works in broken places. My personal goal is simple to brag on Jesus. To share real raw redemption outside of a building. And today's conversation carries the weight of life itself. What happens when somebody dies so you can live? Our guest today, Lisa, knows the answer to that question in a deeply personal way. After a terminal diagnosis and years of struggle, she found herself living on oxygen, barely breathing, hanging between hope and heartbreak. Then the call came a donor match, a double lung transplant. Somebody else's death became the doorway to her survival. And as powerful as that story is physically, it points us toward an even deeper spiritual truth. Jesus came to earth, lived among us, died on a cross, and rose from the dead so that we could truly live not just someday in heaven, but spiritually, alive right now, free, forgiven, restored, breathing again on the inside. Today's episode is also about recovery, addiction, trauma, broken families, absent fathers, shame, and the pain that silently drives people toward destructive choices. And if you're hanging on by a thread today, there's a phrase in this interview that may help you breathe again one event at a time. So settle in because this conversation might be the miracle you have been I'm on the road today in Pascagoula, Mississippi. I'm at Stillwaters, a transitional home, and I'll be talking with the owners, Ricky and Lisa Charlton. Lisa, I love this place. Will you tell the listeners what Still Waters is?

Lisa Charlton 2:54

Still Waters is a 501c3 nonprofit charity, and we are a transitional house for individuals coming out of treatment or jail or in drug court. We have people coming out of prison that are here, and we've been doing it since 2006, is when we first started. I had Joanne Bird from Drug Court call me and wanted to know she had a client who had nowhere to go. And I actually knew the girl. I used to buy drugs from her. And I had been clean. So she called me. And of course, Ricky is a licensed commercial contractor, and this was right after Hurricane Katrina. And so we were doing a lot of construction work. And so this whole upstairs, I said, Ricky, let's let's open up a teening salon. So he built all those little individual rooms up here. And this had been going on for about a year, and we had started getting overwhelmed with construction work. And when I got that call from Joanne, we had already started an aftercare group over here at Riverside Baptist Church for the drug court people because they were having to go all the way to Green County for their aftercare. And so, you know, we had already made that connection, and Ricky and I talked about it, and I said, let's just why don't we just get rid of this tanning salon and make these rooms for women? Wow. And that's what we did.

Ron Meyers 4:27

I mean, you've been doing it for 20 years.

Lisa Charlton 4:28

Yes.

Addiction, Church Hurt, And Surrender

Ron Meyers 4:29

Wow. So it's dear to your heart because you said a minute ago you've dealt with addiction.

Lisa Charlton 4:35

Both Ricky and I both have. Mine started fairly young, had an alcoholic father who was absent. He worked overseas. When we traveled, there were seven of us, and we would go, you know, we've lived all over the world. My mother would give us volume. Alcoholics Anonymous, and I I understand it now. It's taken many years to get a grasp on, you know, to reconcile this condition with what I knew physically and mentally, what I was bound with, with my spiritual life. It's been a long journey from, you know, under coming out of the confines of the Catholic Church. And there were so many good things I took from that, but there was also a lot of questions I was left with. And so at the age of 17, I ended up first treatment center, was the East Mississippi State Hospital. And I had a spiritual experience there that completely revolutionized me. I just surrendered my life to God.

Ron Meyers 5:37

You met Jesus. Amen.

Lisa Charlton 5:39

I mean, I was literally flooded with a light that I could not explain. And that same day, my mother came to pick me up from there. It was horrible. I mean, you want to talk about a demonic place. Things started falling into place.

Ron Meyers 5:55

So when you have this spiritual experience and God just Jesus comes into your life. Yes.

Lisa Charlton 6:02

So there are some things that I think are so embedded in us as human beings that it takes a lifetime to purify for whatever God has consecrated us for. And I I never under, I hate, I did not like that we are to be holy. You know, we say that in scripture. And I just shy, I just it left such a bad taste in my mouth because I knew I could never achieve that.

What Drives Addiction In Families

Ron Meyers 6:32

But you know, when you talk to people now, it seemed like every family, every person, you know, has somebody that is addiction. Even beyond that, is it just so much pressure in the world? What's your thoughts of what leads person to addiction?

Lisa Charlton 6:49

I think it is there's no family. No family, I think it's certainly no fathers. You know, and you've got children. I know when I worked at the home of grace, the level of dysfunction in some of those, I mean, we had girls that came there that were prostituted by their mothers at the age of 13, 14 years old for their own drug money, drug hack hack. You know, I think that there is value in redemption, that God recycles it and it has a per there's a purpose for it. You know, it's like that word holy. I was talking about, you know, there there are things that I have learned in doing this where God has healed me as I'm healing other people. That holy does not mean I'm perfect, it does not mean I'm this, it does not mean I'm that. Anything that is pulled and consecrated for the purposes of God becomes holy. He told Moses, take off your shoes because you're standing on holy ground. That ground was consecrated for the purposes of God, and so therefore it's holy.

How To Hold On To Hope

Ron Meyers 7:56

So you're living out what is your purpose, you feel your purpose, your destiny. I agree too. But to somebody listening, maybe their child or their family members dealing with addiction, and they haven't hit, you know, the freedom yet that you have, what would you tell that person?

Lisa Charlton 8:15

I would tell that person to never give up, to reach out, to to go where the light is. Wherever you're you find the light of God, you go there and you you pray. You don't give up because God does not abandon his children. And I know, you know, I know for me, and I I believe for Ricky as well, that there is a legacy of faith that God honors. Yeah, I had praying parents, I had to pray as for as dysfunctional as they were, they lifted their hearts up on my behalf.

Ron Meyers 8:48

I've had many guests tell me that they know they are alive today because of the prayers of their mothers or grandmothers. And so prayer is very important, isn't it?

Lisa Charlton 9:00

I remember at my mother's funeral, there was a nun that taught me she knew in elementary school, and she was so glad to see me doing well, you know, and she said, I have calluses on my knees praying for you.

Speaker 3 9:18

Wow.

Lisa Charlton 9:19

That your mother asked me to pray for you. And I believe that. I believe God honors that. He doesn't see religion, he does, he's not Baptist, he's not Catholic, he's not, but he searches the hearts of people, and you know, the pure prayers get answered. And so I would say to somebody, you know, reach out for help and know that there's hope. This is not a, you know, I was not a bad person trying to get good, I was a sick person trying to get well, you know, and Jesus said, I did not come for the well, I came for the sick. And so there's a lot of comfort in that. There's a lot of where I can just drop my guard and and say, Okay, here I am. I need all the help I can get from you. And he really is the only one who can bring that about. However, he does it. God uses, he's got people tucked all over the place doing his will, and they're the most random people.

Terminal Diagnosis And Total Dependence

Ron Meyers 10:19

Right. Yeah, I agree. Well, you did a good job.

Lisa Charlton 10:23

I think it's wonderful what you're doing.

Ron Meyers 10:25

Yeah, you're a happy person. I like that.

Lisa Charlton 10:27

I am very happy. I actually had a double lung transplant two years ago. You had a double lung transplant? Yes, two years ago. I was still working at the home of graves. My goodness. And I I told Shaleen something's not right, and I had to find out what was wrong, and I was diagnosed with the terminal illness in 2020 and was put in on Oshner's program. I wasn't expecting that. You know, it brought me a level of wow dependence on God that I've never had to have before. You know, I've always been a fighter, I'm a survivor, but there was no relying on myself in this. You've got to be sick enough to be put on the list, but you've got to be well enough to survive the surgery.

Ron Meyers 11:21

And the transplant can only come from somebody else that had died, right? Yes.

Lisa Charlton 11:27

I was you've got to, you know, there, you've got to go through a whole battery of tests and and you've got to stay monitored. And so my blood match, they do a what's called a panoreactive antibody test, and they put that into their donor thing and see who you're compatible with. And I was only compatible, I would only be compatible with 8% of the lungs available nationwide. I got put on their list in October, and by December, I was on 10 liters of oxygen continuously. And so she told me, we're gonna send you out to Baylor St. Luke's in Texas, or you're not gonna make it. And so I went out there, and you know, you gotta do tests and get put on their list. Within seven days, they called me for lungs. And we went to the hospital, and you know, they immediately start, the family all started coming in, and the doctor came in and he said, I just want to tell you that we got your lungs this morning. And he said, because they measure your cavity, chest cavity, they all day long they're doing stuff. And he said, I just want to let you know size-wise, it's a perfect fit. Wow. And he said, the blood type matching is virtually a perfect match. And he said, What I'm saying to you is this is nothing less than a miracle.

Speaker 3 13:00

Wow.

Lisa Charlton 13:00

And he said, We're gonna, you know, we're gonna get you transplanted today. So I was like, What? All I kept saying was.

Ron Meyers 13:08

So you're you're on oxygen because you could hardly breathe, and now you hear that you're gonna have a whole new life.

Lisa Charlton 13:18

I mean they take you to a little room and the doctors come up and get you. And when I sat down in the chair, and I've got a picture of it. When I sat down in that chair, a silver cross popped up. It must have fallen. Wow. A silver cross popped up and literally leaned it on my leg. Wow. And my brother-in-law took me because my sister had just flown out that morning for her daughter's baby shower in upstate New York. And so my poor brother-in-law had to take me. And he said, What is that? I said, Phil, it's a cross.

Speaker 4 13:59

It's a cross.

Lisa Charlton 14:00

And I started crying. He said, I he said, What does it say? And it said, God loves you.

Speaker 4 14:07

Wow.

Lisa Charlton 14:08

And so through the whole thing, I was he was with you. Oh, I didn't know if I was gonna survive it. I didn't you are in such a state, not to mention the overwhelming that you've got somebody else's who just died.

Ron Meyers 14:26

Who just died? Do they tell you anything about the donor?

The Donor, The Miracle Match, The Weight

Lisa Charlton 14:32

You can write their family and they pass it on. And if their family wants to get in touch with you, they will. And I've done that and I've not heard back. And so I'm just gonna, you know, respect that. Sometimes, you know, they said sometimes it's too painful.

Ron Meyers 14:48

Do you ever just sometimes think when you you know, drinking a cup of coffee just by yourself? That I have somebody else.

Lisa Charlton 14:57

Oh, it's constant.

Ron Meyers 14:58

It's constant. Probably never wow.

Lisa Charlton 15:00

And I had, you know, before this happened, I knew that somebody, you know, somebody was gonna have to die so that I could live. Yeah, I don't know if it was my was making it up or what. But I just had this vision of this girl with long blonde hair on the top of a hill, and there was nothing but white in front of her. And she just would look back at me with a look. And I felt in my heart that that was my donor. I just felt, and I knew, you know, that's what I was saying. You can't, this is a whole nother level of surrender.

Ron Meyers 15:40

So when you talk to people about God, you can go to a deeper level that none of us understand because you are a miracle. Because you are literally a walking living miracle. I really am. Wow, no wonder you have such good faith. What a story.

Lisa Charlton 16:00

Well, you ever think, ask yourself, Lord, why me? Yes, I have over and over, and I've just come to the conclusion, and this is why this is why you can give somebody hope. Is because when I look back on how hard it's been for me to be healed of all the things that have made me me, all the bad choices, all the bad decisions, you know, many of them were just out of desperation, jumping from one mess I made to another mess I made. And somehow or another, God has been faithful to my prayers. And my prayers were just, God, please help me. Please don't give up on me. And when I look back on all that, you know, there's nothing that makes sense other than the fact that God loves me. That's it. Because I did everything I could to mess it up over and over and over, just out of my own brokenness, out of my own, just like I said, I'm none of us are bad people trying to get good. We're sick people trying to get well. And that's the good news is that Jesus said, I did not come for the well, I came for the sick.

Ron Meyers 17:16

So now someone listening, they just need hope. Give them some hope. Yeah, there's hope.

Lisa Charlton 17:21

I mean, I'm sitting here, you know, as like I said, we have this morning, Ricky and I were talking, and I said, you know, the bottom line is by God's grace and mercy, I have outran and outlived all of my vices, all the sins that would destroy me. No, none of the weapons that have been formed against me have been able to prosper. And that's only all I did was pray. That's all I did was pray and show up wherever God led me.

Ron Meyers 17:50

Well, the title of my show is called Get the Hell Out of Your Life. So I'm gonna ask you how does a person get the hell out of their life?

Lisa Charlton 18:00

One event at a time.

Ron Meyers 18:02

One event at a time.

Lisa Charlton 18:03

And you offer the best that you have to God, and that is enough. He will take that and he will mold you, and he will, you know, like it says, the great refiner, he sits over our lives like a refiner, and he'll turn the heat up a little bit and pull some of that dross off and let it cool down, and then he'll put the fire back up again. And then, you know, the the saying that when when he's done, he can look in the and see his reflection.

Ron Meyers 18:33

Wow. And before we go, will you pray for the listeners out there?

A Prayer For Anyone Desperate

Lisa Charlton 18:37

You bet, you bet. Well, Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for every ear that is coming under our voice. And God, I thank you that your grace and your love and your mercy would pour through and speak to those who are lost, who are confused, who are hurting, who feel alone, who are desperate, God. I thank you for the wonderfulness of your Son Jesus Christ and the story of redemption that he brings to all of our lives. And Father, what a beautiful journey it is. That suffering does not have to be an ugly thing. It doesn't have to end ugly, that there is a wonderful beauty that comes from it when we surrender our lives to you and our hearts to you. And so, Father, I thank you that you would touch the hearts of those listening and that somehow your message of hope and love and restoration gets sent forth in Jesus' holy name. Amen.

Every Breath Is A Gift

Seek First And Open The Door

Ron Meyers 19:40

Wow. You know there are interviews you enjoy, and then there are interviews that stay with you long after the microphones are turned off. This is one of those conversations. Lisa's story forces us to stop and think about something most of us avoid. Life is fragile. Every breath is a gift, and sometimes we don't recognize the value of breath until we're struggling to take one. What struck me the most was the emotional tension she carries, gratitude that she's alive while also knowing someone else lost their life so she could receive those lungs. That's heavy. That changes you. But isn't that also the gospel? Jesus willingly laid down his life so we could live eternally. Not because we earn it, not because we are perfect, but because love stepped into our brokenness and made a way. And maybe today you feel spiritually out of breath. Addiction, fear, shame, anxiety, regret. Maybe life has knocked the wind out of you. Friend, hear me clearly. There is still hope for you. Hope is spelled J E S U S. Lisa also reminded us that recovery is rarely instant. Healing usually happens one event at a time, one decision at a time, one prayer at a time, one surrender at a time. And if someone you love is struggling right now, don't give up on them. Keep reaching, keep praying, keep shining light into dark places. Sometimes people survive because somebody refused to stop believing in them. That's what this show is all about. Encouraging and empowering people to believe that with God, your worst chapter does not have to be your final chapter. I will be back in a minute. And close out today's show.

Announcer 22:02

You're listening to Get the Hell Out of Your Life with your host, Ron Myers. Real stories, real struggles, and real hope.

Speaker 3 22:13

Here's a refreshing word just for you today from Matthew 6.33. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. A refreshing word for you from God's Word.

Speaker 4 22:29

Jesus, Jesus. What do you think of when you hear that name? Jesus, Jesus. Love, life, hope, joy, joy, peace, friend, companion, confident, savior. The God of the universe lives. And he lives in the form of a man. That man is Jesus Christ. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whosoever believes in him shall have eternal life. Jesus. What will you do with him? He knocks on the door of your heart. When you open that door, your life will change. Forever. It came that the world may have life and may have it more abundantly. Ask Jesus into your heart and discover what living is all about. Call 1-888-NeedM.

Speaker 2 23:43

Get the hell out of your life. Get the hell out of your life.

Ron Meyers 23:51

My friend, before we leave today, I want you to think about this. You and I are only one heartbeat away from eternity. That's not meant to scare you. It's meant to wake you up. Lisa's story reminds us how precious life really is. Every breath matters. Every day matters. Every decision matters. Every person listening matters. And maybe today you've been spiritually suffocating, trying to carry pain by yourself, trying to outrun your past, trying to numb the hurt, trying to be strong while falling apart inside. My friend, listen to this. Jesus did not come to condemn you. He came to save you so you could live. The cross was not the end of the story. The resurrection power proved that death, addiction, shame, fear, and hopelessness do not get the final word. Here are a few action steps you can take away from today's show. One, if you need help, ask for it today. Not next week, but today. Number two, if someone you love is struggling, reach out again and again. Don't stop believing. Number three, go where the light is, stay in the light, stay around healthy people, healthy places, healthy voices. Number four, stop letting your past define your future. God has an awesome plan for those who follow Him. Number five, remember holy doesn't mean perfect. It means set apart for a purpose. God can use broken people. I know that for a fact because I was a broken individual living on Misfit Island, and he came and he rescued me. In fact, most of the people he uses in Scripture were broken first. And maybe that's why you're listening right now. Maybe this isn't random. Maybe God is reminding you that you still have a purpose, and there's still breath in your lungs for a reason. I say this often because I believe with all my heart. Don't live on the island of regrets. You know what villages called should have, would have, and could have, because it's never too late for a new beginning. You know, this show is produced especially for non-churchgoers, for people who have been hurt, disappointed, or pushed away from faith. My goal is simple to brag on Jesus and remind you that grace is bigger than your past. Grace is bigger than all your mistakes. And remember this someone died so you could live, both physically in Lisa's story and spiritually through Jesus Christ. If today's episode has touched you, share it with someone that needs some encouragement, some hope. I will be back next week with another grace-filled episode of Get the Hell Out of Your Life, available wherever you listen to podcast. Until next time, this is Ron Myers reminding you keep breathing in grace. And remember, life with Jesus is pretty cool. Try it.

Announcer 27:25

Today's show was produced by Ron Myers Ministries, a listener-supported ministry. For a copy of today's broadcast, please visit our website, thepromoter.org. And would you prayerfully consider making a tax deductible donation so that we may continue to share stories of God's amazing grace with the world? And join us next week for another broadcast of Get the Hell Out of Your Life. Real people, sharing real struggles, and offering real hope.