Therefore I Have Hope: 12 Truths That Comfort, Sustain, and Redeem in Tragedy
208
Therefore I Have Hope: 12 Truths That Comfort, Sustain, and Redeem in Tragedy
208Paperback
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781433558771 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Crossway |
| Publication date: | 07/31/2018 |
| Pages: | 208 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.54(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Grace
As a pastor, I frequently find myself walking into the vortex of tragedies. Being at the hospital when someone has died or entering a family's home hours after tragic news constitutes one of the great privileges and challenges of pastoral ministry.
When I walk down a corridor toward an ICU room or pace through the grass to a front door, the same anxiety always arises over this question: What do I say?
What do you say to a mother who has just lost her son? What do you say to a boy whose father has finally lost his battle with cancer? What do you say to parents whose child has been crippled in a car wreck? Is there really any sufficient word in such shock and darkness?
The nervousness in these situations has diminished (if not disappeared) for me since my son died. I now know the most daunting question that one faces in the immediate aftermath of tragedy.
Having left the hospital after doctors pronounced Cam dead, Lauren and I sat in Cam's room on Cam's bed, our eyes flooding with tears and our minds dizzy with disorientation. Eighteen hours earlier I had played on this bed with my son. One hour ago I saw his lifeless body on a gurney.
With our heads shaking, we repeated a question that expressed confusion, powerlessness, despair, and sorrow.
What are we going to do? Where do we go from here?
I repeated the question to a point that I felt like a zombie in a trance. We felt wholly incapable of putting one step in front of another. Who has any concept or wisdom for how to navigate tragedy? These fields of shock and sorrow are utterly unchartered for most people. Nobody ever taught a Sunday school lesson about the first steps immediately following a tragedy. Nothing can prepare you practically to answer the question, "What are we going to do? Where do I go from here?"
Furthermore, an existential boulder instantly lands on your back. You hardly can breathe with the shock of the current pain, and unfortunately, hundreds of decisions, responsibilities, and trials begin to mount.
When will the funeral be? Cremation or burial? Do you have life insurance? Can you talk to the police investigator? Have you seen the hospital bill? What will we do with his clothes?
One can only feel paralyzed with the overwhelming weight of your Worst.
For one woman, the challenge of coping with the loss of one twin in pregnancy would have been enough. Finding out that the surviving child had severe hearing loss added another level of stress and lament. One month after this diagnosis, her father died in a car accident. The wreck also seriously injured her mother. This woman had to plan her father's funeral while attending to her wounded mother. Her father owned a business that she had to manage and prepare to sell. (Yes, making payroll, canceling appointments, and filing taxes while also running to the hospital.) In addition, a criminal investigation focused on the drunk driver who hit her parents. All in the span of a year: the loss of a child, the loss of a father, the discovery of a child's disability while caring for kids, a wounded mother, and a business.
At ground zero, in the hours following the realization that she and her husband had lost a baby in utero, this woman never could have known that this tragedy constituted only the tip of the iceberg of burdensome, painful challenges ahead. Surely she would have collapsed and folded in despair if she could see the cumulative pressure and sorrow beyond those awful, initial hours. Surely we all would collapse and fold if God presented to us all of the trials and pains that the future holds.
Right out of college, I struggled with some health issues that required me to resign from a job. As I tried to put together a plan for a next step, I met with an older man from my church over coffee. Rather than putting the pen to the paper for a game plan on moving forward, he told me his story.
And in his story, I learned the simple, helpful answer to the most daunting question we face in the wake of tragedy.
He explained that his wife had a medical condition where she would fall into a debilitating depression for four to eight days every month. She literally could not care for herself during that monthly episode, to the extent that he would have to take off of work until his bride was restored to health.
Given how much this man's wife totally depended on him, she often would spiral into a panic when she wondered how she would survive if her husband were to die. Who would care for their kids? Who would provide for and serve her during her monthly depression episode? How could their family function? The fear of such an event paralyzed her.
This gentleman said that he offered her the same word of comfort each month. He explained that the reason she could not conceive of survival is because she was not in that situation: he was still alive. He said that God only gives us the grace for the situations to which we are called. He reassured his wife that if something ever happened to him, then God would give her the grace for that very trial. His wife would have vision, wisdom, and ability for that challenge because God would give her the grace she would need.
He called the concept provisional grace.
In my season of grief, I identified in many ways with the Israelites' journey in the book of Exodus. After the Lord released his people from bondage in Egypt and led them through the parted Red Sea, they awakened to a stark situation: they were in the desert with no food. The people began to grumble, demonstrating that their attitude toward God was not trusting (Ex. 16:2). They complained that it would have been better for them to remain in slavery in Egypt, where at least they had food, than to face certain starvation in the desert (Ex.16:3).
Let's be honest: Do you blame the Israelites? Would you, like me, be wondering, What have we gotten ourselves into? They were refugees standing in a foreign, lifeless desert. They had no infrastructure for sustenance and no real direction. Numerous enemies posed a military threat, and they had no army for defense.
They still lived with the question: What are we going to do? Where do we go from here? The concern of basic survival existed.
God responded to their grumbling by making a promise that he would provide day by day and night by night. Each day, bread — called "manna" — fell from the sky and nourished the people (Ex. 16:4–5). In a place where there was absolutely no food and where the Israelites had no ability to provide for themselves, God's provisional grace in the form of manna met their need.
Furthermore, the Israelites had no direction in this unfamiliar land. The Lord provided a cloud by day and fire by night in the sky to guide and direct them. God supplied grace to sustain and lead the Israelites forward in their plight.
In the initial moments of your Worst, envisioning yourself as a pilgrim following God in the desert may be the wisest perspective you can embrace. You, like the Israelites, have embarked on a new journey into unchartered territory. You have left behind familiar places of security. The land around you lacks any sources of life and nourishment. You have been reduced to struggling for basic survival. Worst of all, in this barren place, you have few (if any) internal resources to aid yourself. Continuing on without miraculous means is impossible.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus declared, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven" (John 6:51). The Jewish audience to whom Jesus spoke would make no mistake about his analogy. He likened himself to the manna of the desert during the exodus.
Jesus made a provocative and clear statement with this proclamation. He said that the world is a desert with no sustenance. Furthermore, he positioned himself as the only nourishment on offer for the soul. He framed himself as the ultimate source of help for the weary heart.
In our Worst we must learn to ask constantly for God's help. We must look to Jesus, the manna who constantly falls upon us. We must turn our eyes to Christ, the cloud and fire in the sky that leads us forward.
In order to seek God's grace, we must remember the gospel. Even if our Worst is the making of our own mistakes, the Lord desires to show mercy. Isaiah proclaimed to the Israelites, at a time of their greatest failure, "The Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore, he will rise up to show you compassion" (Isa. 30:18 NIV). Notice the passion behind God's desire to extend grace to the humble who ask him for help.
God wants to be asked for grace. God wants to support you.
Paul wrote to the Philippians, "My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus" (Phil.4:19). He does not say "some" needs but "every" need. He does not say it is because you got your act together. It is becauseJesus, through the cross, has enabled God the Father to supply generously to those in need who ask for help.
As Lauren and I sat on Cam's bed in those first horrible hours of our Worst, thinking about the utterly miserable and seemingly impossible road ahead, I began to give myself the same advice I had heard right out of college. I said the only thing I honestly could say to Lauren: "All we need is grace for today. That's all we need."
And so we asked God for sufficient grace, and the Lord made it rain.
Roadside Grace
When I visit people immediately after tragedies, I tell them that they need to rely on God's help every step of the way; they simply cannot survive on their own strength. In addition, I offer a critical qualifier that came to me the week of Cam's death.
In the first hours after Cam died, I remembered a couple, Angel and Hunter, with whom I attended church in my early twenties. Their son, Lawson, went in for a relatively safe surgery at three months of age and simply never came out of it. I hardly knew this couple, but recalled wondering how in the world they were functioning in the year after their child's death. I observed them from afar and was amazed that they were still breathing. I moved to another church a year after their son passed away, but when I saw them in public from time to time over the next ten years, I remembered them as "those brave people who lost a child and survived."
Now Lauren and I were in similar shoes and struggling to conceive of how we would make it through life. This couple became a monument of hope to me. I really wanted to connect with them and seek their counsel.
Two days after Cam's funeral, as I pushed my daughter's stroller through our neighborhood, I saw a Chevy SUV cautiously slow down. As I made eye contact with the driver, I realized it was Angel. She recognized me too and stopped the car.
Even though we did not know each other formally, I wondered if maybe she had stopped by our house. Word about Cam seemed to travel fast in Birmingham, and perhaps she wanted to reach out to us. We lived in totally separate areas of town at the time — there would have been no reason at all for her to be in our townhouse complex on the other side of the city. Or so I thought.
In reality, our meeting was purely providential. At the perfect point in time and space, I was outside on a walk just as Angel was leaving a relative's house, driving on the same road we were walking. Angel represented manna, and then she became a cloud in the sky.
In that brief conversation, Angel offered the best words I heard along the journey. She told me to focus on the day, or even just the hour. She said that, in the morning, I might need to ask God for the grace to make it to lunchtime. In the afternoon, ask for the grace to make it to dinner. At night, ask for the grace to make it to bedtime. At bedtime, ask for the grace to sleep. And the next day, do it all over again.
The "grace for this hour" mentality, which emerged from this instrumental conversation, served as a foundation for our lives in the early stages of our grief.
Jesus provided similar wisdom in the Sermon on the Mount. He addressed the anxieties that people experience when they ask, "What shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we wear?" In essence, Jesus tackled the basic survival question of the Worst: "What are we going to do? Where do we go from here?"
Christ first reassures his followers of his constant care for them. He rhetorically asks if the birds, the lilies, or the grass of the fields worry about what they will eat, drink, or wear. Jesus affirms that God abundantly supplies for these creatures; he then asks how much more will the Lord graciously provide for his beloved children.
Jesus ends this lesson with a strict order: "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble" (Matt. 6:34). Christ calls us to a "grace for this hour" discipline. He tells us to repent from worrying about tomorrow, because we simply cannot handle tomorrow. With his help, we can only bear the difficulties of today.
When Jesus instructed the disciples on prayer through the Lord's Prayer, he called them to ask for "daily bread" (Matt. 6:11). Not for weekly or annual bread or "enough for retirement." He called them to focus on daily provision.
In order to survive your Worst, you must heed this admonition of Christ. When you find your mind wandering to the concerns of tomorrow, next month, or next year, you must repent and remind yourself, "I am only called to today. God has given me grace for today, not for tomorrow. Stay focused on the present."
God says in Psalm 119:105 that "[his] word is a lamp to [our] feet." Notice, this is not a flashlight or a spotlight; it is simply a lamp for our feet. Just enough light for what is immediately before us. This means that he intends for his Word to guide us for the next step. Not for the month or the year. Just the next step.
An alcoholic friend of mine once told me the story of an Alcoholics Anonymous old-timer who opened up about his mentality for sobriety. He admitted that if he ever found himself thinking about having a long streak of sobriety or planning on making it through the whole month without drinking, he knew he would relapse. He said, "When I'm not focused on sobriety for today and today alone, then I know I'm finished."
Each day and every week, Lauren and I had to make impossible journeys where only God's grace could sustain us. Writing an obituary, returning to Cam's school, walking by his Sunday school room, navigating genetics testing, boxing clothes — all of these were miserable, unbearable challenges. More so than these unique trials, just proceeding through the daily misery and sadness of grief was the greatest difficulty for which we needed God's help. You too probably have similar challenges — birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, recovery, etc. — where the Lord has sustained you, and you certainly have trials that loom in the future.
Life after Cam's death became a depressing journey through a melancholy desert of sadness. Each day, though, at just the right time, God would provide sustenance for the soul to carry us to the next hour. This "bread" may have looked like a meal provided, a text message with Scripture, an invitation for dinner with friends, some news about the birth of a friend's baby, a free pass to the local pool, a poignant letter, the empathetic tears of a neighbor, night-nurses, a friend sleeping on our daughter's floor, or simply a beautiful day. Regardless of the form, the help came from heaven, and it carried us through dry, lifeless territory.
Grace in Your Worst Nightmare
Life is utterly brutal in the season of your Worst. Repeatedly you will come to the conclusion that you simply will not make it. God calls us to very short-term thinking. Jesus tells us to remove tomorrow from consideration and to trust him solely for today (Matt. 6:34).
When you start to think about managing your suffering beyond this very moment, you will feel overwhelmed and depressed. By looking so far down the road, you are assuming a role that God claims. You cannot handle such a burden. Focus on trusting God for the grace of this very hour.
Remember that God is on your side. He is for you. His love for you is more than a tepid fondness. His love is a passionate, intense, self-sacrificing affection that fills his heart. It is the love of a proud father holding his beloved baby for the first time.
Furthermore, God's love moves him to offer help to sustain you in the desert. As you may sadly find, you may look for help in all kinds of places — busyness, liquor, vacations, etc. — and nothing in the world comforts your soul in a lasting, satisfactory manner. Only the grace of God can meet your desperate need in this season of darkness.
Given how horrific your circumstances may be during this period, you may react to this talk of God's love and grace as nonsense. Surely God hates me if such misery consumes my life? Rather than giving me help, my experience says that God has hung me out to dry! These feelings are fully understandable in times of suffering.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Therefore I Have Hope"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Cameron Cole.
Excerpted by permission of Good News Publishers.
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.
Table of Contents
Foreword 11
Introduction 15
Section 1 The Initial Shock
1 Grace 23
2 Gospel 37
3 Resurrection 51
4 Faith 65
Section 2 The New Normal
5 Empathy 81
6 Providence 91
7 Doubt 103
8 Presence 119
9 Sin 133
Section 3 The Long Haul
10 Joy 145
11 Service 161
12 Heaven 173
The Narrative of Hope 185
Epilogue 189
Acknowledgments 191
Notes 193
General Index 195
Scripture Index 199
What People are Saying About This
“Cameron Cole candidly offers practical and biblical advice for those who mourn in Therefore I Have Hope. An easy—to—read work without heavy theological language, this book can be understood and immediately applied to make a difference in a mourner’s life. Cole openly shares lessons he's learning following the tragic loss of his son and does not shy away from gradually and carefully pulling back the curtain on very real and present pain. The principles he shares apply to those who suffer various losses—the loss of a job, a parent, a child, one’s identity, one’s confidence, or one’s friends.”
—Robert Smith Jr., Distinguished Professor of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University; author, Doctrine that Dances; The Oasis of God; and Exalting Jesus in Joshua
“With both sensitivity and skill, Cameron Cole proves in this book that the central truths of the Bible actually matter for those of us who have ever encountered the often unspeakable tragedies of life. While our words to ourselves and to those who encounter suffering and loss sometimes fall flat, Cole reminds us that the profound realities found in the person and work of Jesus Christ and his resurrection can lift us to new heights of faith, hope, and love. Every Christian needs to read this book to discover anew that God is both great and good—no matter what may befall us.”
—Julius J. Kim, Visiting Professor of Practical Theology, Westminster Seminary California
“Suffering and grief accumulate. No wonder we live in a time when many have lost the landmarks of faith, hope, and love due to overwhelming heartache. Cameron Cole’s book Therefore I Have Hope does not shirk from confronting tragedy. His own story of loss is almost unbearable. Almost. But this book does not leave us drowning in the inevitable question of, “Where is God?” or suffocating in trivial answers. Cole deftly intersects God’s own stories with ours to light the lamps of faith, hope, and love.”
—Sharon Hersh, Adjunct Professor of Counseling, Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando; author, Begin Again, Believe Again
“Having lost my father when I was eighteen and my brother several years later to suicide, I’ve walked the lonely road of grief. I only wish I’d had a resource like Cameron Cole’s book, which is hopeful without being trite and biblical without being preachy. This book will be of such immense encouragement and help, not just because it’s hopeful but because it’s human. I marvel that Cole bears such compelling witness to God’s grace in the midst of his Worst, and I can’t wait to put this book into the hands of people who, like Job, wonder if God has disappeared.”
—Jen Pollock Michel, author, Surprised by Paradox and Teach Us to Want
“Therefore I Have Hope chronicles Cameron Cole’s journey into one of the hardest stories a parent will ever experience, the death of a child. But, thankfully, it’s a journey that didn’t get sabotaged by graceless cynicism or religious cliché. The gospel of God’s grace is more beautiful and believable to me having read Cameron’s book. I cannot wait to share this story, these painful tears, and this profound joy.”
—Scotty Smith, Pastor Emeritus, Christ Community Church, Franklin, Tennessee; Teacher in Residence, West End Community Church, Nashville, Tennessee
“The problem of suffering is a plaything for philosophers but a reality for humans. Here, in the raw pain of grief, Cameron Cole shows God’s way of enabling Christians to face the reality of suffering. Cameron shows how the great truths of God’s Word prepare, enable, and equip us to live by hope in the midst of tragedy. A good book to read before our Worst confronts us.”
—Phillip D. Jensen, Bible Teacher and Evangelist, Two Ways Ministries; author, The Coming of the Holy Spirit; Guidance and the Voice of God; and Two Ways to Live
“In a world on the precipice of despair, we need a clear theology of suffering so we might truly live out a transformational theology of hope. Stories like Cole’s embody the type of flourishing available on the other side of our very worst fears, and this book offers practical ways to find a hope that does not put us to shame no matter what storms may come.”
—Jay and Katherine Wolf, Founders, HOPE HEALS; authors, Hope Heals: A True Story of Overwhelming Loss and an Overcoming Love