Miranda Lambert’s ‘Sister’ Shares Her Shocking Kidnapping Story—and the Family Who Saved Her Life
After a terrifying childhood abduction, Lauren Burns found faith, family and healing in Texas with the Lambert family
Key Takeaways
- At age 7, Lauren Burns was abducted to Jordan. Her mother launched a rescue.
- Country star Miranda Lambert’s family welcomed Lauren into their home during her healing.
- Lauren's new memoir 'Stolen' explores trauma, faith and the power of chosen family.
At 7-years-old, Lauren Burns was kidnapped by her father from her Texas home and taken to Jordan. What followed was a mother’s desperate international search, a dangerous rescue and a long journey toward healing that would change her life forever.
Now a wife, mom of two boys, a physical therapist and host of The Redeemed Podcast, Lauren is sharing her remarkable story in her new memoir, Stolen: A True Story—Kidnapped, Rescued, Redeemed, about survival, faith and the family who helped her find hope again.
At the heart of Lauren’s healing journey is the Lambert family—including country music superstar Miranda Lambert, who grew up alongside Lauren and says she is “like a sister.” Miranda even wrote the foreword to Stolen, a testament to the deep bond they share. It’s a story of survival, and also of the families we’re born into and the ones we find along the way.
Lauren’s kidnapping and rescue
In 1987, seven-year-old Lauren was abducted from her Texas home by her father and taken to his hometown in Jordan. What began as a routine Halloween weekend visitation with her father—who was divorced from her mother, the sole custodian—overnight turned into a desperate international search for a missing child.
After exhausting legal options, Lauren’s mother, Catherine, refused to give up. With the help of private investigators, experts and former military operatives, she eventually joined a dangerous mission to rescue her daughter.
After weeks of searching, the rescue team spotted Lauren on a school bus. Catherine then boarded a flight to Jordan to help carry out the rescue mission. When the moment was right, Catherine and the rescue team carried out their plan to take Lauren from the bus. Then they rushed her toward the Allenby Bridge between Jordan and Israel. Once they crossed into Israel, Lauren was finally out of Jordan and would soon return home to the United States. But as Lauren writes in Stolen, being rescued was only the beginning. The real journey of learning to heal, trust, and forgive was just starting.
Finding a place to heal
After her rescue, Lauren and her mother faced years of upheaval. They changed their last name, lived in hiding and moved 14 times by the time Lauren was in high school.
Eventually, Lauren spent time living with the Lamberts in Lindale, Texas, where she found a sense of community and belonging that became an important part of her healing.
“Even though I love them with all my heart, and Miranda’s like a little sister to me, I was still mad about another move, another change, and having to go from the city to the country,” she says.
But life in the Lambert home gave Lauren stability, relationships and a place where her faith could grow.
“Beverly literally took me to church and introduced me to all the kids,” Lauren recalls. It was that environment at the church, in youth group, and family meals around the kitchen table that became a major part of her healing.
Wrestling with God and finding healing
Lauren’s faith journey wasn’t always easy. After everything she had experienced, she says she struggled to understand how God could have allowed her abduction to happen.
“I had to wrestle with God. Like, yes, You brought me through this amazing rescue, but why did this ever even happen to me?” she says. “So I was angry. I had a lot of anger.” Lauren remembers thinking: God, are You a good God? And what does a good father look like? Because I don’t know what a good father looks like.
Beverly became an important part of that journey, particularly through the youth group she led. One question she posed to a group of teenagers ultimately became a turning point for Lauren.
The question was, “Nobody’s dad is like God because no person is like God. There’s just no chance that your dad is like God. But how is your dad like God, and how is he not like God?”
For Lauren, something about that question opened the door to emotions she had been carrying for years.
“And then God really showed up in my life,” she says. “I would say in life group, in that circle of my friends who were 15-16 years old. Beverly asked that one question. It broke down the walls where I was vulnerable enough to speak out my anger and my hurt and my grief and my jealousy.”
As Lauren began sharing honestly, she discovered that the people she thought had perfect lives were carrying struggles of their own.
“And as I began to speak it out, all those friends around me that I thought had the perfect lives began to also share the stuff they were going through, and so I didn’t feel so alone anymore,” she says. “So it’s like when you speak that hurt into the open, into the environment, then your healing can begin at that point.”
The family who became her own
When the Lamberts gave Lauren a place to live, they also became family.
“When you grow up with that kind of trauma and not having a father, Rick Lambert being that father figure, loving me like I was his own. I’ve told Miranda and Luke so many times, and they’re like, ‘Lauren, why are you thanking me?'” she says. “To love me like I’m his own daughter…for a wounded girl, that’s huge.”
Rick became the father figure Lauren needed during a time when she wasn’t sure what her future would look like.
“For so long I thought, Who’s gonna walk me down the aisle? Who’s gonna be there?” Lauren says. “And God gave me a great stepfather. Richard was an amazing stepfather. But in my early years, I didn’t know if I was going to have a Richard. And so before I knew I was going to have a Richard, I had a Rick.”
Beverly, meanwhile, embraced Lauren as one of her own children. That bond has continued into adulthood. Lauren says she couldn’t wait to share the news of her first pregnancy with Beverly and Rick.
And her relationship with Miranda remains just as meaningful. “I’m so proud of her and the woman that she is,” Lauren says. “And the things that she does, and the things she does for other people.”
When Lauren told Miranda she planned to write Stolen, Miranda immediately offered her support.
“She’s nonstop. ‘Yes, Lauren, you can use my name. Yes, you can use my photos,'” Lauren says. “And she’s like, ‘Stop asking me. The answer is yes.'”
Beverly says Miranda was especially moved by the faith woven throughout Lauren’s story.
“She was reading the book, just blown away. ‘Wait, Lauren wrote this?'” Beverly says. “She was so touched because she was young when this happened.”
And Miranda was eager to stand behind the story. “She said, ‘Everyone knows my journey with God. This is gonna do nothing but further secure that,'” Beverly recalls. “But just attaching herself to the element of God thrilled her to death.”
For Lauren, having Miranda write the foreword made the book even more emotional.
“It means so much to hear her voice in the words,” Lauren beams. “And the pride and the support mean so much.”
A story she felt called to tell
For Lauren, the decision to tell her story now in Stolen came unexpectedly while she was sitting at home looking through Miranda’s family cookbook. She came across a familiar recipe for Beverly Lambert’s meatloaf, which she had eaten countless times growing up. She suddenly found herself overwhelmed with emotion.
“I just kept feeling this urge: It is time for you to write your story,” Lauren says. “And I was like, ‘What? I don’t know how to write a book.’ I’m a physical therapist, a full-time mom and wife, and I also have dyslexia. Writing a book was the last thing I’d ever want to do.”
But despite not feeling adequate, Lauren surrendered the idea to God and began praying about how He wanted her to tell her story.
“And then He just started opening the doors,” she says. “Yes, there’s a movie, but I felt like God was saying, It is time for you to share what I did in your life. I felt like it was time to share the healing journey of what happened after the rescue. Because the rescue is amazing, but it does not share all that we went through after.”
That healing journey is one Lauren says she could not have walked alone. Beverly and Rick Lambert had been part of her life since she was very young, and their family continued to walk alongside her after she returned home.
For Beverly, there was never any question about supporting Lauren in writing the book.
“There’s no train I wouldn’t get in or under for Lauren,” Beverly says. “She’s like one of my own. So there was not even a question for Rick and me, and Miranda too.”
Beverly says Lauren was treated as part of the family from the beginning. “She’s just like a third sibling,” she says. “So there wasn’t a moment of ‘Are we doing this or not?’ That’d be like your child saying, ‘Are you coming to my wedding?'”
A story of forgiveness and redemption
Ultimately, Lauren hopes Stolen helps readers see beyond the shocking circumstances of her kidnapping and rescue to the deeper story of faith, healing, and forgiveness.
“I believe that only happens with God,” she says. “I don’t know how people forgive without having God, but when you get to that point, it’s so much freedom, and that’s when your healing begins.”
Beverly hopes Lauren’s story reminds readers of their own strength, especially when life feels impossible.
“For me, the whole story is based on the strength and tenacity of her mother,” Beverly says. “That’s where it starts and ends. So for everybody who reads this book, I want you to realize: You have it in you. You have the strength. When your feet are to the fire, you can do this.”
Lauren’s book, Stolen: A True Story—Kidnapped, Rescued, Redeemed, is a testament to the power of a mother’s love, the healing found in family, and the freedom that comes through faith and forgiveness.
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