Candace Nassar (00:00)
Well, welcome, Amy. It’s so good to have you on the show today. Your story is so powerful and your ministry is so vital. And I am just so thankful for what you do and that you’re on here today to share with our listeners. And thank you for saying yes to when Jesus called you to this years ago. So welcome to the show.
Amy (00:19)
Mm-hmm.
Amy (00:23)
Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to be on today.
Candace Nassar (00:26)
Yeah, I’m so glad. So let’s just start by having you share your story of, we’re talking about embrace grace today and unplanned pregnancies and how your ministry impacts that. So we’re just gonna give a lot of information to our listeners today, but it’s gonna be powerful. So yeah, tell us your story.
Amy (00:46)
Yeah, well, I had an unplanned pregnancy when I was 19. I grew up in church, but I didn’t have a relationship with the Lord. And I just went because my parents made me. But I ended up finding out I was pregnant and I was so scared to tell my parents. I was, you know, the enemy lies to you in that situation. You think of the worst case scenarios that could ever happen. I thought my life was over. My dreams were over. And and I just thought
Candace Nassar (00:59)
and then.
Amy (01:15)
you know, I’d be homeless, all of these terrible thoughts of what my life was gonna look like. And so me and the father of the baby, he felt the same way. We decided that even though we grew up knowing abortion was wrong, it just seemed like a quick fix, you know? We would just deal with the consequences of a broken heart later that we could just have an abortion. And so we scheduled it, we went to have it done. when I went in, they were explaining to me how they were gonna do it. And I ended up,
Candace Nassar (01:17)
Hmm.
Amy (01:44)
actually hyperventilating and passing out in the abortion room. And when I came to, one of the nurses was feigning me. She was trying to give me a drink of water and she said, you’re too emotionally distraught to make this decision today. You can come back another day, but today you’re not getting an abortion. And so I went back out in the waiting room and told the father of the baby, we’re still pregnant. And he could see my face was swollen from crying so much and.
Candace Nassar (01:48)
Mm.
Candace Nassar (02:00)
Wow.
Candace Nassar (02:09)
Mmm.
Amy (02:10)
So we just decided in that moment, okay, like if our life is over, our dreams are over, you know, all of these things, we knew we had each other. were high school sweethearts. We knew we wanted to get married someday, just not necessarily in the order that it ended up happening, but we decided, okay, let’s just do this. If we’re gonna be homeless, we’re, you know, all this stuff, like let’s just figure it out. And so we told our parents, it wasn’t as bad as we thought it would be. They definitely were disappointed in the timing of everything, but we had decided to get married when I was 16 weeks pregnant. Ryan, the pastor that had led my husband to the Lord years before, he asked him if he would marry us. And he said, no, I’m sorry, because you’ve sinned. I will not bless this marriage. And we were just like, my gosh, like we’re such horrible people. We can’t even be married and be blessed. And so we ended up finding someone else that would marry us, but it definitely felt like a scarlet letter experience.
Candace Nassar (02:53)
Oh
Amy (03:05)
And so after the wedding, you know, we tried to go back to church, but it’s like the elephant in the room and people don’t know whether to say congratulations or I’m sorry. And so they don’t say anything and you just feel alone and a crowd of people. And so we just stopped going for a really long time and we ended up having a son who is so amazing and we can’t imagine our life without him. He’s 26 now and he went to Oral Roberts University.
Candace Nassar (03:07)
Gosh.
Candace Nassar (03:20)
Mm.
Amy (03:32)
majored in theology and got his MBA and now he runs a marketing company for the pro-life. All of his clients, most of them are all in the pro-life movement. serves the pro-life movement, writes their content. He’s an amazing communicator. He’s an amazing father because now I’m a grandma and as of eight months ago and I just can’t imagine my life without my little grand baby girl Holly. I’m a honey. That’s what that’s my grandma name. And I was in Pennsylvania speaking not too long ago and I said that and someone came up to me afterwards was like that is the most Texas grandma name I’ve ever heard. I’m like yeah I guess it probably is. But yeah so I just you know he’s such a blessing and we can’t imagine our life without him and his wife is so amazing and so
Candace Nassar (04:03)
Okay.
Candace Nassar (04:11)
you
you
Candace Nassar (04:18)
Sure.
Amy (04:22)
we, whenever he was two years old, that pastor that wouldn’t marry us, he actually called us out of, called my husband out of the blue and he asked for forgiveness. He said he felt like it was his worst mistake in pastoring history that he had ever made and will you please forgive me and my husband loves this pastor. He was like, yes, of course, we forgive you, we love you so much and when my son was 16, that pastor,
Candace Nassar (04:34)
Oh.
Amy (04:46)
that wouldn’t marry us. We’re in the Dallas-Wilkworth area and he’s more in the Austin, Texas area. And so he had asked me to come out to his church and speak about embrace grace and pro-love and all the things that we do. He was very open with his congregation before we had gotten there. He had told them all what had happened. He said, I had a Pharisee spirit or a religious spirit, a Pharisee heart, you know, and this is what I did to them. He’s just super open with them. He’s just such a precious man. he’s, so he had me come speak.
Again, Jess was 16. Afterwards, he asked me to come back on the platform, and this is in front of the entire congregation, and he asked my son, Jess, to come on the platform. And he said, Amy, years ago, I asked your husband for forgiveness, but I never really asked you, will you forgive me? And I was like, yes, of course, I forgive you a long time ago, we love you so much. Well, then he looked at my son, 16, in front of the whole church.
Candace Nassar (05:35)
So beautiful.
Amy (05:40)
And he said, will you forgive me for planting seeds of rejection in your heart before you were ever even born? And while you were in your mother’s womb, I rejected you. And my son, 16, in front of the whole church says, I forgive you. And it was such a powerful moment in that room. Like you could feel church wounds being lifted. The fact that the pastor would humble himself in that way was like so amazing and healing for, I think for a lot of people there, whether it was
Candace Nassar (06:04)
Mm-hmm.
Amy (06:09)
church wounds about, you know, it could be about anything. I think it was healing for a lot of people that the pastor did that. And it was also healing for Jess because three years before when he was 13, we had told him the story.
He hadn’t really done the calculations of like our anniversary and his birthday and that it’s not quite nine months, you know, and I had my first book come out and I was about to be on these shows and I was like, I’ve never even sat down and told Jess, you know, I have to sit down and tell him and I have four kids, you know, and so at this time, we just took him, you know, the oldest to cheese cake factory, which he was just like, why are y’all just taking me? I had all my friends praying because I was so worried that he would take it as rejection or, you know, we, yes, exactly. And so we had all my friends praying, we got there, we told him everything, you know, I just was like, you weren’t planned by us, but you’re planned by God, you know, all this stuff.
Candace Nassar (06:51)
Just that he wasn’t wanted or something.
Amy (07:04)
And so afterwards I was like, how does this, how do you feel? Like, give me something, you how are you feeling right now? And you know, he’s a 13 year old eighth grade boy. And so his response was a typical 13 year old eighth grade boy. was just like, you know, he didn’t really have much to say, but I found out later over time over the next six months or so, the enemy was lying to him about, you know, you weren’t even wanted and your parents didn’t even plan you. And they, you know, even though he knew how loved he was, he was struggling with some
Candace Nassar (07:24)
Hmm.
Amy (07:32)
some thoughts about his identity, his value and all of that until one day he came into my room. His youth pastor had asked him and a couple of other kids to speak for 30 seconds on how you’re an overcomer, how you’re an overcomer somewhere in your life. And so he came into my room and he said, mom, this is what I prepared. He said, I really felt like God just spoke to me.
And he said, I was an overcomer before I was ever even born and Satan had a plan to take me out, but I’m here and I want to use my story and I want to help people. And I was like, that is amazing. And so, so yeah, now he goes out and sometimes we even speak together. You know, we do a podcast together or speak on a platform, on platforms, telling both of our perspectives of the story and everything, but super proud of them. So all of that just kind of gave me going through all of that gave me a passion for
Candace Nassar (07:57)
All right.
Candace Nassar (08:10)
I love that.
Mm.
Amy (08:22)
helping make sure that women have the support they need when they find out they’re pregnant and especially through the local church.
Candace Nassar (08:30)
You know that there’s so many layers to the beauty in that story. But before we talk more about how you turn that into ministry and how God called you into ministry, I just want to take a moment to speak to the listener that maybe didn’t make that choice to go with life and took the way that Satan tried to convince you because I actually took that way out.
And it is a really, really hard decision and it’s scary and I wasn’t a believer and so I know that there are many women who were believers or are believers that made that choice that feel even worse because I can kind of point back and go, well, I didn’t know Jesus. But regardless, I want you to know that God restores all things that we have done and
Amy (09:14)
Mm-hmm.
Amy (09:22)
Mm-hmm.
Candace Nassar (09:25)
regardless of what you have done in your past, you can go to him confess, repent, and he will forgive and restore you. I am living testimony of that. it was a long journey. I now have three kids and a granddaughter, but it was, many years of struggling. So God can redeem and I don’t want anyone to feel shame or guilt about past choices. You made a great, beautiful choice. God worked through my choice and either way,
He’s good and he is faithful and we praise him, right?
Amy (09:58)
Yes, I want to add on one more thing too, and you’re not alone as well. Like the abortion rate is the same inside the church as it is outside. There’s no difference. And so it’s one in four women have experienced an abortion. So a lot of times women just kind of feel like, I’m the only one in this church that has ever had an abortion.
I can’t talk about it when actually, I really feel like there could be a Me Too movement with this specific issue because there’s so many women that have experienced it and struggle with shame and just even just feeling like they’re disqualified from ministry or serving or whatever, but God is who qualifies you.
Revelation 12, 11 says, we’ve overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. And so there’s something healing about sharing it, about telling someone, whether it’s in your church and even looking at the abortion healing.You know, God wants to heal your heart and a lot of times it comes in layers and all of that.
But one great way to even get it started is by going to an abortion healing group. There’s so many of them. There are in many churches. Surrendering the Secret is a great one. Forgiven and Set Free. There’s a great organization called Support After Abortion where you can find a lot. It’s almost like a menu of different ways to go through healing, whether you want to watch something online or you want to go to a retreat. If you’re Catholic, if you’re Protestant, if you’re atheist, know, whatever you might be, they have different programs to get plugged into and start the healing process and we have had a lot of them women lead embrace grace support groups Which I know we’ll get into that but they want to be the person They wish they had in their life when they made that decision like what kind of support that they need and then they want to be that for someone else
Candace Nassar (11:37)
Absolutely, absolutely. And that’s actually what I did. I volunteered at a pregnancy center out in California. I went through their healing support group and it was tremendous. It was really, you know, totally transformational. So, okay, great. So let’s talk about Embrace Grace. So tell us about what Embrace Grace is, what you offer, just all of it.
Amy (11:46)
Yes.
Amy (11:50)
Mm-hmm.
Amy (11:58)
Yeah, so Embrace Grace is a support group system that is for women with unexpected pregnancies, but the support groups are within churches all over the nation. So we want the church to be one of the first places a girl runs to instead of the last because of shame and guilt. And so a lot of our moms are referred by local pregnancy centers like what you just mentioned, and they find out they’re pregnant at a local pregnancy center. They get one of our love boxes, which are these great, beautiful gifts that we give to pregnancy centers for free.
And whenever a girl finds out she’s pregnant, they give her this gift. And it has all the information about a local Embrace Grace group at a church. And so Embrace Grace is a 12 week group. give the church the curriculum. It’s digital curriculum and book curriculum, but you just press play. So the teachings are done for you. And we give you like the icebreaker questions, the handouts to give out each week.
We give you as much as we can administratively so you have more time relationally with these moms and the bond that is created with these moms. We don’t want any single mom to ever have to walk alone. They also get a baby shower as part of the experience and we don’t want it to just be like a 12-week group. want, by the end of it, we hope that they’re more comfortable with the church. They want to go to the church, that they’re going to raise their kids in the church and they have found a spiritual family and a place of belonging within the local church.
We have over 1200 support groups in the United States, in all 50 states, but we definitely need a lot more. definitely if anyone feels a stirring in their heart, you’ll have to reach out to us. I lead my own group and I say that we have front row seats to miracles each week. It’s just incredible to be a part of this and what God’s doing through Embrace Grace.
Candace Nassar (13:44)
I love that.
And you know, it’s one of the things I really love about your ministry is that, well, for starters, you have this thing you say what that it shouldn’t be pro-life, but it should be pro-love. And that you’re exemplifying that through embrace grace. And I hear a lot about the church saying, you know, pro-life that abortion is wrong, but then they just leave it and they don’t come in and do.
Amy (13:59)
Yes.
Amy (14:11)
Mm-hmm.
Candace Nassar (14:13)
what Embrace Grace does, and that is love on the mamas. They feel, if they feel rejected by their church, mean, you know, praise God your pastor asked for your forgiveness, but you know, being rejected like that or ashamed to go to talk to your pastor, any of those things that happens all the time. And so these women, you know, they, they need the love and the support to be able to follow through with a very difficult choice, a very sacrificial choice and when you’re unmarried and all of that.
And so I love how the church can support these women and then build those relationships so that after the birth, that they’re still able to take care of this family, this single mom family, if that’s the case. And there’s, I’m sure, just story after story that you could share. And I wanna get into that. So first of all,
Amy (14:42)
Mm-hmm.
Amy (14:58)
Mm-hmm.
Amy (15:06)
Yeah, we always say pro-life is a stance. It’s a belief system, but pro-love is the action. And it’s God’s kindness that leads us to repentance, is His love that is what saves lives, changes lives. So we don’t want to be just pro-life. We want to be pro-love as well.
Candace Nassar (15:13)
no.
Candace Nassar (15:23)
Well, yeah, because when you talk about pro-life, seems a little judgmental, right? That, you know, well, why did you get yourself in this situation? Well, that’s irrelevant. You know, that’s just not, I mean, it’s all that shame that definitely takes people to the place of, you know, having an abortion. So good, so, so good. What was the moment that you knew God was calling you to offer this ministry to others?
Amy (15:26)
Mm-hmm.
Amy (15:32)
Yeah.
Amy (15:50)
Well, so I just got, had gotten plugged, I had finally found a church that I really liked and gotten plugged in and I was at a women’s conference one day and I just, during this conference, I had a vision. I’ve never had a vision before and I’ve never had a vision since, but it was so, it was during worship. Carrie Jobe Carnes was leading worship and Christine Kane was speaking and it was just a powerful moment, but I saw.
It was like a snapshots of pictures that seemed like it was just right in front of my eyes. And the snapshots of were of me 10 years before, my son was 10 at the time. And it was when I was pregnant with him and the snapshots, I looked really sad in the pictures. And it was all these like pictures flashing in front of my eyes, but then the snapshots changed.
and it was of me throwing baby showers. And I love parties. I love throwing parties. That year, all my friends, I had a big baby boom with all my friends and I had thrown 13 baby showers for my girlfriends, like so many. And so it changed to me like throwing baby showers. And I was like, that is so crazy that happened. Like it looks so real. And at this point, it’s not like, you know, my son’s 10. I think I had two kids at the time. It’s not like I went around and thought about.
Candace Nassar (16:47)
my word
Amy (17:02)
my unplanned pregnancy, you I’m married, I’m doing life. Like, it’s not like I just, it was on my mind at that time a lot at all, but for whatever reason, you know, God wanted me to see that. And so I, when I was walking out of the conference afterwards, I ran into the group’s pastor and I said, can I tell you what just happened? It was, it looked so real. And so I told her about it and she said, oh, well, why don’t you just start a small group for girls with unplanned pregnancies in the baby shower can kind of be the hook to get them in the door.
Candace Nassar (17:05)
Mm-hmm.
Amy (17:30)
And I, you know, I had never led anything my life. I, there was something terrifying about what she just said, but then also something was stirring in my heart. Like, yes, this is what you’re supposed to do. So we were only thinking, you know, our own church and our own group. And so we had that first group. We’ve kind of put them where we started, this all happened in March. And so in the fall, in August, we were going to start our first group. And so we put the word out, kind of just told people.
I really at that point didn’t even really know what pregnancy centers were. Like no one had ever told me, you know, when I had my own on-plan pregnancy, I went straight to the abortion clinic. So no, I didn’t really know what they were. And so we kind of put the word out and it was just word of mouth, but, and one ended up being my cousin, cause she had just found out she was pregnant during this time. So we had three moms and they all wouldn’t make eye contact. They had this like hopelessness. And one I remember specifically wore a coat in August in Texas.
Candace Nassar (18:02)
Mmm.
Mm.
Amy (18:25)
because she was terrified of stepping foot into the church and anyone seeing her pregnant. Just a lot of shame. One was still abortion minded. Her mom had just begged her to come and said, if you just go to this group one time, her mom didn’t want her to have one, but she was 19. And so she said she was going to, but, and so it was amazing to see over the course of 12 weeks how they just sort of transformed. Like they, by the end they were empowered as women to be the moms that God created them to be. They were like,
Candace Nassar (18:28)
Yeah. Yeah.
Amy (18:52)
had their shoulders squared and they would look at you and they would have a sparkle in their eye when you asked them, like, what are you gonna name your baby? Like they just seemed completely different. So we did it and it was like, this is amazing. And so then we did it again and three more girls came, then eight, then 14, then 21 and it just started growing and growing at our church. But then other churches started hearing about it and saying, this is so cool. Can you show us what you’re teaching? And over time we kind of had started writing our own curriculum, like seeing specifically what they needed. And so we had gotten up to 10.
churches four years after we had that first group and that’s when we were like, I think God wants us to help people help people and help the church be the church. And this is bigger than what we’re just thinking our church. Like this is something that is desperately needed in the movement. Nothing like this exists. But in fact, I didn’t even really know there was a movement. I didn’t know there was a pro-life movement. Like if someone said I work in the pro-life movement, I would have assumed that meant picketers because that’s the only thing the media showed, you know, didn’t know pregnancy centers existed.
Candace Nassar (19:29)
Mm-hmm.
Candace Nassar (19:46)
Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Amy (19:48)
I didn’t know anything about the movement. And so, but we started it in 2012, became an official nonprofit. And, and then, yeah, by 2014, we had enough funding to get in our first office. And that’s when I really feel like we hit the ground running. And, and then a few years after that, 2016 was when I figured out what pregnancy centers were. And I’m like, how have I gone to church my whole life? And no one ever told me that these exist. Like even in my own story, we didn’t have Google 26 years ago. It was just kind of starting to go around. Like we use the phone book.
You just would go straight to the abortion clinic. And even though I ended up choosing life, but how many other girls are just going straight to the abortion clinic, not knowing that there’s free pregnancy centers in their community that they can go to.
Candace Nassar (20:20)
Yeah.
Candace Nassar (20:34)
Well, one of the things, so I want to add that in my story, I was in Atlanta, Georgia, and I actually saw an ad for a pregnancy center, Pregnant Need Help Call. And so that’s how I found out about it. Now I went, but the sad truth of it is now this was 1985. So they did not have any kind of resources. I don’t think like they had today, but they, they made me feel very judged and very, they just,
Amy (21:00)
y’all
Candace Nassar (21:03)
some what they did was really kind of horrific. I can’t imagine doing what they did. And so it turned me away and I left. But what I want I love about what you guys do is you give your love boxes to these pregnancy centers and in it you have that onesie that says greatest gift ever. Isn’t that what it says? Best gift ever. Yeah. All those things that you know, it’s all about just feeling that love and that support.
Amy (21:22)
Best gift ever.
Candace Nassar (21:29)
And so I think that’s so, so vital. And I think all the things you’re doing and the curriculum, all of that’s so great. So why don’t you share? Well, first of all, let me ask you this. Many of our listeners are raising teens and preteens. And so how can we talk to our daughters and our sons about grace and sex and unplanned pregnancy in a loving, honest way? Because you and I both said we were too afraid to tell our parents, right? And, and so
Amy (21:43)
Mm-hmm.
Amy (21:56)
Mm-hmm.
Candace Nassar (21:57)
Is there something we can do as parents to change that?
Amy (21:59)
Well, for sure, having an open dialogue and serving at local pregnancy centers, at Embrace Grace too, you can write letters that go inside the love boxes. And it says, Dear Brave Girl at the top. And you can speak life into someone that just found out they’re pregnant and you can mail them in. And so getting your whole family involved and like really trying to make a moment where you’re putting, helping them put themselves into her situation.
Because when they’re in high school, they may meet a girl with an unplanned pregnancy and to be able to resource them on how to talk to them. Congratulations is always in order. Can I help you? Can I get you to a pregnancy center? Do you need me to be there when you tell your parents? Do you need a support system? What do you need to be able to resource your kids is huge. You actually asked like a very, that’s all a really big question. We can do a whole podcast just on this, but on,
Candace Nassar (22:51)
True. Yes. Yes.
Amy (22:54)
On the sex part, this is what I’ve noticed with a lot of Embrace Grace moms, we have the moms that have never been to church ever, and they don’t, like even talking about abstinence is such a foreign, like they’re just like, what are you taught? Like it’s something they’ve never thought about, never been taught, it’s never been modeled for them by their own parents, you all of that. But then we have the girls that grew up in church, they get pregnant, and maybe they had a purity ring, and they,
Candace Nassar (23:11)
Sure.
Candace Nassar (23:23)
Mmm, mm-hmm.
Amy (23:23)
you know, find out they’re pregnant and they take off their purity ring and they stuff it into the corner of their dresser or jewelry box and then they’re like, I’ve lost my purity. When that’s actually not biblical. Like we can’t lose our purity. If we are a believer, you know, we’ve been washed white as snow. So it’s not something you can have and then lose. You can lose your virginity.
And there are natural consequences to losing your virginity, emotionally, physically, you know, all of that. But you can’t lose your purity. And so these girls, they take it off because they think they’ve lost it. And then they’re like, well, I guess I’ll just, since I’m dirty now, I’ll just have sex with whoever. Like, mine as well, I just lost it and now I’m, you know, a terrible person. And then they settle and they’re with guys that smoke weed and play video games all day. And because they think they’ve lost something that they haven’t.
And so I know with my own daughter, she just got married two weeks ago, but when she was in high school, she wanted a purity ring. And I was like, listen, we can get one, but let’s call it a pure heart ring. And what does it look like to have a pure heart? And I’m so proud of you for wanting to stay abstinent. And I pray that that actually happens. Like that is amazing. But if you do mess up, do not take this off.
Candace Nassar (24:17)
Hmm.
Amy (24:38)
You cannot lose your purity. then we will talk through what are all the natural consequences and the emotional consequences and even spiritual, all of that of having sex outside of marriage. And this is why we don’t, but if you mess up, you know, can’t, we’re not gonna take this off. That just ask for forgiveness, repent, change your ways and start again.
And because I’ve just seen way too many girls. It’s just like a weird mindset of like well, I’ve lost it I’m dirty. So now I’m just gonna have sex with whoever and we have to change that Help them understand that that that thinking is not correct
Candace Nassar (25:06)
Yeah, that makes sense.
Candace Nassar (25:13)
Right. Cause all that is, is just more shame and more guilt and piled on. I know, my daughter was raised in the purity movement and, you know, back in the day, she’s almost 33. And so, she talks to me about the fallout from all of that, not just in, not in her life, but really in just her friends. And I mean, I think too, I mean, she’s still not married and I think there is some, there’s fallout in a lot of ways from that movement that just really did some false teaching.
Amy (25:31)
Yeah.
Amy (25:42)
for sure.
Candace Nassar (25:42)
So that’s really good. So give us some stories. What’s your favorite story about a mom that you’ve seen walk through, embrace grace and just all that she’s experienced?
Amy (25:56)
Gosh, there are honestly so many stories. One of my favorites, and I tell this one a lot because it’s so good, but we had a girl that was into witchcraft. She was Wiccan and she had heard about embrace grace and she really wanted the baby shower. She wanted the free stuff. So she called me and said, I heard about this from a girl, but I’m into witchcraft. Like, is it going to be a problem for me to come to your church? And I said, no, like you can still come. You don’t have to believe in God to come to embrace grace, but just know we are gonna talk about God and we’re gonna talk about Jesus and all that.
So she’s like, that’s fine. So she didn’t have a car. So I’d pick her up each week and I would get some extra time with her. She was actually, was really smart. Her parents had given her like all the books of religion when she was young and they said, you believe what you wanna believe. And there was something about nature, you know, the false truth of what she thought was true, but it wasn’t.
And so we would get this extra time together. And I just really felt in my heart that there was going to be a salvation experience for her. Like I felt it. I was thanking God for it. remember one time, she never missed a class. I remember one time she said in the car, I like the way it makes me feel when I come to this church. And I just like held onto that. I was like, Lord, you’re doing something in her. I thank you that, you know, she’s gonna, to make this decision. And so she does the whole.
Candace Nassar (27:04)
Hmm.
Amy (27:12)
Embrace Grace experience. She gets the baby shower. Then we also did this thing called the princess day and it’s about all about their identity and their value and their worth and all of that. So she does the whole thing and she doesn’t surrender her life to the Lord. And she didn’t know this because of course I’m just talking to God about it, but I’m like, God, you know what, what went wrong? You know, by week four, they should, you know, I made the decision, you know, you make all these plans and, and I just was just, like grieving that, that she didn’t.
And so I heard the Lord say, you’re planting seeds. Do you think a girl that is wicked would have ever stepped foot into a church if you hadn’t created a safe place for her to be there? And so just let my people keep watering the seeds. So I was like, okay, God, you know, I trust you. And so I lost track with her for a while after that, her phone number changed and it was like a year later, she called me out of the blue and she was freaking out. She actually called me through Facebook, which I didn’t even know you could call people on Facebook, but my computer was ringing and I’m like, what the heck?
So I answer and she’s like, Amy, I lost your number. You know, I got a new number, all this stuff. And she said, I have to tell you, she said, I’ve been thinking weird things have been happening. And she said, I’ve been thinking maybe God is real. And she said, think something and then something happens to maybe confirm that he is. She was a manager of a restaurant slash gas station. And she said, I was walking into work and I was like, God, if you’re out there right now and you can hear me I keep thinking maybe you’re trying to talk to me and I don’t want to just think you’re real. I want to know you’re real.
So can you do something a little bigger that will confirm that you’re real? And so she goes into work and she said that this guy came up to the counter and she said he seemed very nervous. His hands were shaking and he said, hi, I was driving past this place and I heard the Lord tell me to come back and tell the girl at the counter that he loves you and he sees you and all he wants is your heart.
And she was like, what? And so she went home and she got her embrace grace curriculum from the year before and within there’s a salvation prayer. And she said she went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror and she had put on the tiara from when we had done princess day the year before. And she said, I wanted to look in the mirror because I wanted it to be a moment that I never forgot. Like I didn’t want to doubt.
Candace Nassar (29:01)
No way. No way.
Amy (29:24)
She said I wanted to be a moment of like this is when I am surrendering my life to the Lord and so she prayed the prayer and I was the first person she called and I just was thanking the Lord because I know there are girls that sometimes walk out that I’m like I don’t know if anything’s getting through but I felt like this one I took so personal and I felt like he let me see this one to know like you know, you never know they what can happen after the fact But then I was thinking to you reminded me of she liked the way we made her feel
Candace Nassar (29:50)
Mmm.
Amy (29:51)
when she came to church. It is God’s kindness that leads us to repentance. It’s His love. That is what changes people, It was the love. And then I was thinking about that guy, you know, she said he was nervous and he probably walked away, you know, thinking, God, I’m such a dork. Like, why do you make me do these awkward things? It’s so awkward. But he had no idea that she went straight home.
Candace Nassar (30:09)
you
Amy (30:15)
and she surrendered her life to the Lord. Like, I can just imagine someday in heaven that Jesus is like, remember that girl I told you to talk to? Well, here she is and here’s her kids and her grandkids and her great grandkids. And what’s so cool about it is it wasn’t just him. You know, it was people that bought gifts at the baby shower. It was the friends that she made within the church. It was the love that she felt. It was all of God’s people that were being obedient to the Holy Spirit.
Candace Nassar (30:21)
yeah.
Amy (30:42)
all doing what the Holy Spirit’s leading us to do until she had made that decision to follow Jesus. And so, it’s cool to see, we have a 73 % salvation slash recommitment rate in Embrace Grace. And so the lives that are changed, the salvations, it’s just beautiful to see how it’s not just affecting them, it’s affecting generations to come.
Candace Nassar (31:08)
Yeah, so incredible. You know, it’s amazing how much your passion and your heart of embrace grace is like mom Q and, and we, step in at the stage of, possibly a young mom elementary age moms and moms of teens and, but just the community and the love and being discipled in the word. We’ve seen tons of life change as well.
Amy (31:28)
Yes.
Candace Nassar (31:32)
and the impact of generations. I love that so much. I just, I encourage anyone who wants to give back or get involved in helping, making sure that unplanned pregnancies are supported in multiple ways to reach out, to embrace grace, to go on their website. They have all kinds of information. You can click that you want to become, to start a group, all of the things. And I’m sure you guys would.
Amy (31:55)
Mm-hmm.
Candace Nassar (31:59)
just get them all plugged in and get going.
Amy (32:01)
Yeah, embracegrace.com and follow us on social media, embracegraceinc.
Candace Nassar (32:05)
Great, well thank you so much, Amy. Such a great conversation. God bless your work and I hope to talk to you soon.
Amy (32:12)
Thank you. Yeah.