This is an I-Heart podcast.

And we continue with our American stories.

Up next, the story of how God's love and forgiveness brought a broken woman's

soul back to life. And this story, this one hits close to home. It happens every day in America

and across the world. God's grace changes hearts, changes minds, and changes lives. It often brings people back

to life. As another Easter rolled by the Sunday before last and Christians in America and around

the world celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ, one story in my small town of Oxford, Mississippi, is worth telling.

She grew up near the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, not far from Biloxi and Gulfport.

Towns known for their fishing and shipbuilding industries, and their casinos. She didn't have much growing up. Her mom,

who'd been married several times, did her best to raise her four daughters by herself.

She worked as a waitress pulling long shifts at a local restaurant to support her girls.

Her father, he was out of the picture. He never showed up, never paid child support,

and never provided the basics of life that a young girl needs from a dad. He was never there to

show her what a man's love looks like. Sometimes, as a month closed, there were hard choices to make.

The choice between paying an electric bill or a grocery bill.

Sometimes there wasn't enough for both.

The young girl blossomed into a beautiful teenager, but there was an absence.

A void she didn't know was a void.

Without knowing it, she found and sought a substitute for the love she never received from her father.

In-step to predator to do just that.

He was a prominent lawyer in a nearby town and decades older.

He did what this particular brand of predators do.

...