Desperate Hope: When Faith in God Overcame My Despair

by Candi Pearson-Shelton

Overview

As her younger brother battled for life in the ICU, musician Candi Pearson-Shelton and her family sat waiting and praying, clinging to hope. Rick Pearson died anyway, at age 23. But in those tense ICU days and the painful months following Rick's death, the family found a shared purpose and a new hope: to see God glorified no matter what.

This remarkable book chronicles their journey offering a song of praise to One who not only revealed His glory, but also granted a shifted perspective that changed nothing ... but somehow made all the difference. Includes the story behind the author's song, "Glory Revealed."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781434700834
Publisher:	David C Cook
Publication date:	02/01/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	421 KB

About the Author

Candi Pearson-Shelton is a worship leader, songwriter, and independent artist best known for her involvement with the Passion worship movement and the Dove-award-winning Glory Revealed concept album.

Read an Excerpt

DESPERATE HOPE

When Faith in God Overcame My Despair

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By CANDI PEARSON-SHELTON

David C. Cook

Copyright © 2010 Candi Pearson-Shelton
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4347-0083-4

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CHAPTER 1

Substance of Hope

Oh blessed Hope, sole boon of man; whereby, on his strait prison walls, are painted beautiful far-stretching landscapes; and into the night of very Death is shed holiest dawn.

—Thomas Carlyle

If you could hope for just one thing, what would it be? What is that one hope that causes you to wake every morning and trudge through these days? Something, something in the fiber of an existence fuels each breath. If not, then what good is living? Lost hope is lost meaning, and lost meaning is void—dull, still, black. This is no life. This is more like what I imagine hell would be.

We need a marvelous hope because we need purpose. We pray for what we hope for because our entire being screams out a deep longing for it, and to lose this would be to lose ourselves. So what can be the object of this kind of hope? What is the single greatest imaginable hope?

The substance of such a worthy hope, the kind that gives purpose and meaning to this life, is recorded in the gospel of John, tucked inside one of Jesus' prayers. Chapter 17 records what Jesus thought important enough to pray for. This was His deep longing, and in His perfect marriage of deity and humanity, He offered us a glimpse of His object of great hope. In this chapter we find Jesus praying a remarkably simple prayer that can be broken into three distinct parts.

First, He prays for Himself. In the few beginning sentences, He establishes with His Father the importance of their reciprocated glory, praying that God would glorify Him so that He could in turn glorify God. He confidently confesses the beautiful fulfillment of His mission, acknowledging the work He had been sent to do was done. His primary concern for Himself, His worthy and God-centered hope, was that in the time approaching—His betrayal, arrest, and death—He would continue in the reciprocal glory between Father and Son, and God would bring Him back into the glory they shared before the beginning of the world (verses 1–5). His desire for Himself? To reveal the glory of His Father and get back to Him as soon as possible.

The second part of the prayer is for His disciples. This piece of His prayer is especially moving because it reveals His genuine affection for these men, these friends and brothers, to whom He'd grown so close. The first part reads like a proud papa spouting off a list of the things his children have accomplished. They kept His word, they accepted it as truth and believed Jesus to be the Son of God, and they glorified the Father because of it. Jesus' tender love is revealed as He prays according to His great hope for these men. He asks for a bond of unity, the same brand He enjoys with God His Father. He asks for His own joy to be fulfilled—literally crammed—in them. He prays that God would keep them protected from the Enemy as they carry out the tasks that were entrusted to them. His great hope for His friends, His disciples? That they would exist joyfully in unity as they spread the beauty of the gospel, which is the hope of glory and the promise of being with Jesus the Savior forever in His Father's kingdom.

The third part of this prayer is my favorite because it puts an exclamation point on Jesus' great hope. It happens to be where we come in too. Jesus actually prays for us—you and me—in John 17! Isn't that an amazing discovery? Before we were even given an earthly thought, He divinely prayed for us, and we have the proof of His thoughts toward us in this chapter. His prayer for us sounds very much like those for Himself and His disciples. He prays that we, those of us to come who would believe in Him, would also enjoy the same unity that He has with His Father. He set His glory on us so that we would fully know the unity He desires for us, and so the world would see how much we are loved by the Father. Then he adds the icing:

Father, I want these whom you've given me to be with me, so they can see my glory. (John 17:24)

There it is: Jesus' great hope is for us to be with Him so we can relish His supreme grandness—to see His glory. In the three-part prayer for us all, He illuminated the hope that fueled His words, His actions, His life, and His death. He wants us all to see His glory, and He desperately wants us all with Him.

This incredible truth is far easier to read and accept with eager willingness, easier to apply to our own lives, when we haven't found ourselves in the precarious position of praying against Jesus. Trying to reconcile our hopes with the hope that is evidenced in Jesus' prayer means that we will no doubt find ourselves pleading against the very thing Christ has already prayed for. Rick's sickness highlighted the opposing prayers God hears, as well as the wide contrast between our sometimes selfish hope and the pure and perfect hope of Jesus. We prayed for more time here, for healing, for miraculous things, but things that ultimately kept Rick physically intact and in close proximity.

And Ricky died.

And Jesus prayed for this!

I find it hard to say anything more eloquent and God breathed than the words Charles Spurgeon has already penned:

Thus the disciple is at cross-purposes with his Lord. The soul cannot be in both places: the beloved one cannot be with Christ and with you too. Now, which pleader shall win the day? If you had your choice; if the King should step from His throne, and say, "Here are two supplicants praying in opposition to one another, which shall be answered?" Oh! I am sure, though it were agony, you would start from your feet, and say, "Jesus, not my will, but Thine be done." You would give up your prayer for your loved one's life, if you could realize the thoughts that Christ is praying in the opposite direction—"Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am." Lord, Thou shalt have them. By faith we let them go.

Understanding the deep ramifications of an answered prayer, one way or another, is to consider all its facets. For me, it is an astonishingly brighter mourning when a child of God returns to Him because Christ's prayers were answered rather than my own ... that the death wasn't just a blip on the radar screen of life or a chance occurrence among the other random happenings here on earth. This was an event that has been prayed for over the course of history. Our prayers would have only recently joined in with that of Christ's, which continues to ring out through time for each of us who believes. He loves us more than understanding can allow us to think upon, and sometimes God grants His Son's prayer with a "yes" answer, at the expense of our mortal but temporary wounds and to the blissful delight of all the beings in heaven. He did with Rick, and we continue to turn the diamond of an answered prayer in order to see more facets when the Light touches them.

Now I stand with the diamond in hand—His answer to our prayers. I stand in the aftermath of hope. To say that a journey of hope can have an aftermath is fiercely accurate, as only one who has been on such a journey can know. What a mere day looks like after such a grueling journey; how small moments suddenly inflict enormous emotion; how a lifetime feels in the wake of crushing sorrow and miraculous graces intertwined—all are a part of the full experience of the aftermath.

There is more to an aftermath than a simple time of felt consequences left from the disaster that brings it about. Instead, it is more akin to a second growth from the season of pain, the harvest of our grief bringing about a second crop. The aftermath of hope is about wandering around in the rubble, finding the green mingled in with the char, picking up the pieces that aren't burned or completely shattered, and finding in the new growth a collection of new ideas, new vision, new character, and a new, more certain hope.

And whether from talent or compulsion of the soul, there is great value in recording the gentle whispers and hard-learned faith lessons that make up the aftermath, springing up like tender shoots of vivid green grass through the contrasting blackened dry soot. These are my blades of grass, the lessons in the aftermath, told with the heart of an explorer fresh from the adventure, brimming with tales of terror and scars, of beauty and redemption.

The aftermath of hope. Hope in all its glory.

CHAPTER 2

I Believe I Am in Control

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

—John Lennon

Oh, the plans we make! We are obsessed with them, spending our lives plotting, organizing, arranging, and planning every fine detail that can be squeezed out of life. We tidily make five- and ten-year plans that are impressive to even the best organizers among us. There is certainly virtue in responsibility—caring for that which has been entrusted to us with as much wisdom and forethought as we can provide. However, this is not our usual approach. It seems to me that all our detailing and planning really have nothing to do with responsibility and everything to do with control. Over and over again we decide things for our lives with the massive assumption that we completely control our circumstances, crossing every t and dotting every i before there are any t's or i's to cross or dot.

A busy schedule is the mark of a successful person today. Paper calendars, wherever they exist in our digital age, are penciled in so heavily that the dates are barely legible, while PDAs constantly ring out a reminder for the next scheduled event. Even if it isn't the exhilaration of managing a full plate, something inside of us draws a wide, self-satisfied grin after writing out a to-do list, knowing that each task will have a definitive and triumphant "CHECK" next to it very soon.

I have decided that our culture functions on what I call a Container Store mentality. "Control your clutter" and "Organize your life" are the headlines above us. Television shows that have given full careers to people who do nothing more than put our stuff in plastic tubs are multiplying while we follow suit, fitting everything we can into our little containers like the professionals tell us, all the while compartmentalizing our winter jackets right along with our hopes for our future. It's all in the name of making life easier. I get it. But I don't think ease is the result. A controlled environment is probably a little more accurate. In other words, we put our hope in ourselves.

I am convinced that Satan enjoys our proclivity for control more than just about anything else in the world because it's just so easy for him to distract us from the untainted and complete beauty of the lordship of Christ. The more we grasp for control, the less we make of His rule, and the less we make of His rule, the less we trust Him to be who He says He is—God. Satan often uses our willingness to be self-sustaining as a tool to separate us from the sustaining rule of Christ. We love our independence, and we sometimes fight tooth and nail against the very One who jump-started our breaths and gave us our legs to walk away, all because our plans seem more important than our Creator, our control certainly more enticing than our surrender.

Immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control affairs.—Andrew Carnegie

I have learned a very hard lesson as it relates to my controlling tendencies: Hope in myself and my ability to control will ALWAYS disappoint. Even on my best days, I am no match for myself, my greatest enemy.

All of my thoughts and ideals, reasonings and rationalizations are filtered through the faulty pretense that I am omniscient, that I am somehow equipped to be all-knowing and wise beyond borders. This unstable foundation is layered with another oft-defective characteristic of mine. I am also a deal-with-it person. I typically dig in and keep things on track no matter how frantic the pace or stressful the situation. In those moments there is an odd sense of brief euphoria, no doubt brought on by the rush of adrenaline and firing communication of neurons. This combination only serves to reinforce the delusion of my ability, enchanting me as I teeter on the outer limits of self-sufficiency.

What a dangerous line to dance upon. Believing myself to be omniscient only makes the fall that much more painful. Somehow I sabotage my own decisions or plans, injecting selfishness, insecurity, nearsighted wisdom, and false justice into them based on my own faux omniscience. The bottom line is that faith in my own ability is frightening and ill placed. Sure, convincing myself of my ability to control may bring immense power, but it will ultimately bring complete destruction without being tempered by the authority of Christ's rule.

And this is dangerous for all of us—our foundation, our faith, crumbles little by little under the surface while we are none the wiser. What makes it so perilous is that we often don't see what is happening until it is too late. The bough breaks, and the cradle falls hard and fast. This is when we realize the mistake; our cradle, our control, wasn't as secure as we thought it was, and we have a mess of broken faith left to clean up.

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My brother, Rick Pearson, went to The Party on September 9, 2005. "The Party" is what one of my friends calls heaven. I thought this was one of the best descriptions I had ever heard. I like it that much more now that my brother is there. The thing is, my brother was just three weeks into his twenty-third year, and in my mind that is never the right age to go to The Party. I am certain that I am not the only person who feels this way. Herein lies the rub: Obviously it was exactly the right age to go to The Party, at least as it relates to Ricky, because that is where he is now. But how could that possibly be right? I mean, I firmly believe that God ordained Rick's days, and his purpose on this plot of soil suspended in space was brought to a close on that September morning. But I have to be honest—although I believe this to be true, I still find it surreal that God allowed him to stop breathing. I had plans, for crying out loud! I had dreams for him! Don't they count for anything?! It seems that there must have been a mistake in the grand design. Certainly God could have received much more glory through Rick's restoration.

My plans looked something like this:

Rick, who was very beautiful by the way, would be miraculously and gloriously restored to full health. Then he would sit at his computer to read the countless cries and pleas to God for his healing that poured forth from friends and strangers, all captured on one Web site devoted to seeing God do big things with Rick Pearson. Ricky would be astounded and suddenly feel the gravity of what God performed through this journey. Eager to share his unique story, he would travel to all the countries we only say we would go to if God asked it of us, and he would sing with his angelic voice, and he would play his guitar with such grace, and he would lead millions to Christ because of the testimony God gave him. Then, at eighty-eight, when he had lived many earthly years to the glory of God, he would go to The Party and finally hear his Father say, "Well done."

I told you I had plans!

Ricky had plans too. He would be married to his fiancée, Suzanne. They would do life together, do ministry together. They would have children and be parents intent on exemplifying lives spent on the glorious pursuit of Christ. Suzanne would see the bookmarked pages of her wedding magazines brought to life with giddy enthusiasm as she donned her breathtaking white and blushed at the sight of her groom, remembering their treacherous journey to this day, one that brought them so close to death ... only close to death.

These scenarios would have been okay with me. I could place my stamp of approval on any of the above, as if my approval means anything. These outcomes, after all, would undeniably demonstrate God's greatness and mercy, right? Don't they make Him look really big? Of course they do.

Oh, and they also make me feel better.

I think we have the tendency to justify our selfishness by camouflaging it with our concern for God's glory. Making much of God is always appropriate, and when we throw this into our rationalizations, we find a way to weave our selfishness into the mix and call it God's will. Of course it was God's will to heal Ricky. Of course it was His will to say yes to our prayers. Why wouldn't it be? After all, I only want what God wants—to see His glory revealed. The vast difference between these desires, however, is that my desire is motivated by self. God's is motivated by God.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from DESPERATE HOPE by CANDI PEARSON-SHELTON. Copyright © 2010 Candi Pearson-Shelton. Excerpted by permission of David C. Cook.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments,
Foreword by Louie Giglio,
Note from the Author,
Introduction,
One: Substance of Hope,
Two: I Believe I Am in Control,
Three: I Wish God Didn't Trust Me So Much,
Four: Kisses-from-Heaven Days,
Five: The Beauty of Broken Surrender,
Six: Real, Deep Pain,
Seven: How to Spend Every Day,
Eight: I Don't Know Anything,
Nine: Everything Good about Jesus,
Ten: You See That Star?,
Eleven: What God Grew,
Twelve: What Really Happened Was God,
Thirteen: Hope, Mixed with Faith,
Appendix A: A Community of Faith,
Appendix B: Rick, as He Was,
Song Download Instructions,
Legacy,
Notes,