Desperate Hope: When Faith in God Overcame My Despair

What people are saying about …

Desperate Hope

"Hope and faith can seem to lose their meaning for those who know intimately the tragedy of loss. Desperate Hope demonstrates how one family discovered it could continue to hold onto God’s promises despite utter heartbreak and despair. I personally saw this family triumph despite death’s realities and believe anyone who reads this story will find fresh inspiration to stay close to God—even when it’s tempting to turn away."

Andy Stanley, pastor of North Point Community Church

Life might be ‘but a vapor,’ but a Christ-centered testimony can last forever. This book reminds us all not only how to finish well but also how to live in the here and now.

David Nasser, author and minister

This story is one of grief and despair, of doubt and hope, of grace and wonder. I watched it unfold in front of me … and inside me. I’ve never been so captivated by what God was doing. The picture on the cover paints it clearly. Beauty is growing in a parched, dry land.

Lanny Donoho, author of God’s Blogs and president of Bigstuf Productions

DESPERATE HOPE

Published by David C. Cook

4050 Lee Vance View

Colorado Springs, CO 80918 U.S.A.

David C. Cook Distribution Canada

55 Woodslee Avenue, Paris, Ontario, Canada N3L 3E5

David C. Cook U.K., Kingsway Communications

Eastbourne, East Sussex BN23 6NT, England

David C. Cook and the graphic circle C logo

are registered trademarks of Cook Communications Ministries.

All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes,

no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form

without written permission from the publisher.

The Web site addresses recommended throughout this book are offered as a

resource to you. These Web sites are not intended in any way to be or imply an

endorsement on the part of David C. Cook, nor do we vouch for their content.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from THE MESSAGE. Copyright © by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright © 2000; 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © Copyright 1960, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible. (Public Domain.) The passage from John 17 in chapter one is the author’s own translation.

LCCN 2009941185

ISBN 978-1-4347-6614-4

eISBN 978-1-4347-0083-4

© 2010 Candi Pearson-Shelton

The Team: Brian Thomasson, Melanie Larson, Sarah Schultz, Jaci Schneider, and Karen Athen

Cover Design: Amy Kiechlin

Cover Photos: iStockphoto, royalty-free

First Edition 2010

For Haley, the quiet feeler of the family.

I love you.

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

Acknowledgments

Thank you …

Shannon Scott, for the pieces of your heart you gave to my family and this project. You are amazing.

Cheryl Lewis, for realizing this story was bigger than a man and his family and wanting to join us in telling it.

Aroma Café, for providing endless cups of delish coffee and a very inspirational writing environment.

Pam Johnston, Skylar, and Steve and Danna Testa, for being instrumental in these pages actually being published.

Brian Thomasson, Melanie Larson, Don Pape, Terry Behimer, and all at David C. Cook, for seeing the beauty of God’s story in ours and being excited about making it available for others to share.

Lanny Donoho, Louie Giglio, North Point Community Church, Mountain Lake Church, First Baptist Alpharetta, and everyone who followed the blogs, prayed, rejoiced, grieved, and journeyed alongside us, for providing limitless encouragement and love in big and small ways.

Foreword

Welcome home.

Death can be either an end or a beginning, depending on whether you think you’re made for this life or another. For those who sink their hopes and dreams exclusively in the here and now, death is the ultimate dread, and the goal of life is wrapped in the ambition of avoiding the grave at all costs. But such thinking underestimates the strength of the flesh and loses sight of the higher calling each of us bears.

That higher calling is what this book is all about, as it recounts the bravery of a beautifully gifted and magnetic young man as he left us just as his life’s journey began to blossom in full. Rick Pearson, if you didn’t know him, was a living dream. Yet among seemingly endless aptitude was a radiant smile, a reflection of something beginning to percolate within. It was as if Rick had tasted the goodness of a Maker and Redeemer and was desperate to lead others to drink more deeply of the wonder he had found. Rick adored God and he loved people. And with music he built a bridge between the two.

When I think about Rick’s life, I can’t help but smile. While some say his time was cut short, I contend for a different view. For in the end, life’s not about how long you stay on the planet, but what kind of mark you make while you’re here. God has a destiny for us all … a purpose and a plan that unfold in miraculous conception and crescendos with the awareness of stunning grace that rescues and reconnects us to the heartbeat of God. For Rick that meant squeezing the most out of every day and living in a God-sized story that dwarfed death and the grave. So, when faced with the very real prospects of the assault on his body, Rick never doubted the power of God’s hand, yet proclaimed, Whatever the outcome, I win!

I win. Those two simple words did not fall on deaf ears. They reverberated like thunder awakening the living and the dead. There was no doubt this man was fully alive, and his life was calling others to abandon shrinking plans for the uncommon pursuits that are in God’s heart for every one of us.

Not too long after his defiant proclamation, Rick’s journey began to take some difficult turns. Shelley and I arrived at the hospital one night just as the road steepened with the difficult news that Rick had slipped into unconsciousness as his condition severely worsened. As we prayed that night, Psalm 139 kept coming to my mind, especially these verses:

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. (Ps. 139:17–18)

It’s staggering to grasp, but God’s awareness of our lives, and His concern for everything we do, would absolutely blow our minds if we could really comprehend the sum of His thoughts toward us every day. He loves us more than we can conceive, and He loves Rick more than anyone on earth ever could. That’s saying a lot, given the amount of love that some of you reading these words have stored in your heart for him. Yet, while Rick was shared with us, he was created for God. And in His perfect time God opened a doorway for Rick to behold Him face-to-face.

That, I believe, was one incomparable day for Rick Pearson. And I feel sure that those two little words became more alive than he ever dreamed or imagined. The promise of God was true, and when Rick awakened from his sleep, he was in the very presence of the God of the ages. When he finally caught his breath and was able to speak in the midst of such astounding beauty, I can picture him saying over and over to himself, I win, I win, I win! Oh wow, it’s really true. I win!

What’s really amazing is that because of Jesus, we’ll see Rick again. I have no doubt he’ll be smiling that Rick Pearson smile, that sly little grin that unmasked the fact that he craved being right and always had to come in first. I hope that we’ll be smiling too, carrying with us the fruit of lives lived well for the stuff that matters most. In that moment, when hope tumbles into certainty, our tears will evaporate into shouts of joy. We win!

—Louie Giglio

Note from the Author

This book is a collection of my experiences with God and hope in the midst of great pain. It may seem, upon first glance, that I treat my pain as though it’s the worst pain in the world. Truly, it is the worst pain anyone can know … just as your unique pain and loss are the worst anyone can know! This is because it can’t be shared with anyone else, no matter how similar the experience. Your experience of pain is truly other, just as mine is. There is a measure of desperate hope in feeling this way, because if this is the worst it can possibly get, then it has to get better.

My hope is that in reading this book, you are encouraged, challenged, and—most importantly—liberated to feel what you need to feel (even if you feel no one could possibly ever hurt as badly as you do now). It’s all part of the process. May some part of my journey be a stepping-stone for you.

—Candi

Introduction

I had hope. Isn’t hope the worst?

—Adrian Monk

It had been a year and a half since my worst nightmare sprang into terrifying reality. Death and taxes are certain, but death lingers quite a bit longer. I’d tried to suppress anything that had the ability to open up the emotional floodgates, but a year and a half later, it was time to unleash the waters and let them have their way with me. So, with tissues close at hand and laptop appropriately in my lap, I sat on my sofa and prepared to relive the experience of what transpired in the days leading up to that awful nightmare, a story set to words via blogs that recorded the journey of our desperate hope.

Rick started getting sick well before any of us knew it, and by the time it was obvious, it was far beyond any typical ailment. I remember about one month before the nightmare was given a name, my husband and I were in Atlanta to work for a weekend. We had an afternoon off so we were able to meet Rick and his girlfriend, Suzanne, for lunch. We picked my favorite soup-and-salad place ever, and Rick was pretty excited about it too, as he was an appreciator of good food (it runs in the family!). He emerged from his car, his Elvis face looking a little gaunt and his body much thinner than I recalled—and bright yellow! I actually had to try to disguise my surprise, although seeing as how we have known each other since birth it was probably obvious to him. It was strange to see a young man be this color—not a pretty yellow, the way babies sometimes are, but a yellow that alluded to definite problems.

Something was wrong with him.

At this point on the journey, the doctors had considered his fatigue from beach volleyball at summer camp to be a result of dehydration, which was quickly ruled out and replaced by food poisoning. Neither of these were accurate, and so the marathon began. They had most recently landed on hepatitis C and advised that it would just have to run its course. It was beyond my thoughts at the moment that my next visit with my brother would be after a few more bogus diagnoses and a couple of added degrees of awful yellow. When I did see him again, yellowed and tired, he had managed to shrink a few more pounds and was sporting a thin white gown in the Bone Marrow Unit of the hospital. Our nightmare had been named—acute lymphoblastic leukemia—and it woke us from any of our manufactured perfect life ideals and dreams. How quickly our plans can be brought to ruin, our hope shattered into fragments of disbelief and doubt. Tragedy has a way of bringing hope to the surface and causing us to look it squarely in the eyes; to find out what it—and we—are made of.

Rick Pearson’s journal entry from the hospital, August 7, 2005

A way to express the newness and fear of what I’ve been through in the past couple of days is something I’ve found hard to explain. Lots led up to two days ago, but when leukemia was the new battle, things changed. Not in my heart or in my mind—God has truly been constant in holding me high—but the unknown procedures and the weight of being someone whom God has chosen to do something powerful through are staggeringly sobering. I’ve often wondered about what it must feel like to be a great apostle who suffered to carry God’s Word and hope to places. I think I’m beginning to feel the weight, and for now at least, I will accept the task of bringing hope to a cancer ward.

The support has been the most humbling thing I’ve ever known. To see a world of people who have impacted my life, and in some minuscule way have been touched by mine, all pull together to support me and make God famous is my breath. Then at the end of the day, there’s the three of us: me, Great Big God, and the wonderful woman who became my fiancée yesterday! No one will ever be able to adequately be told or read about the rock that Suzanne has been to me. Her words and prayers are always in perfect time with where my heart is—or needs to be. When all is said and done, she will be the one who gets me, and lots of others, through this.

Today I stand on how important it is to realize that my suffering is sharing in Christ’s to develop a truer open faith:

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, Your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. (James 1:2–4 MSG)

Hope is not always beautiful. I have found it, on occasion, to be disgustingly painful. I have felt almost swindled by it, like it’s a greased-up used-car salesman who smiles to cover his anxiety, all the while painting a picture that looks nothing like the thing he actually offers.

I have even wondered why such an ugly emotion exists to begin with. On one hand, it drives us to do more than merely survive. It causes us to long for meaning. It beckons us to need something grand, to experience impossibility and see it blossom into miraculous. Hope is actually the thing that drives me to write even now. It is why I must tell this story.

On the other hand, I believe hope is quite possibly the most dangerous thing a human can ever embrace. After all, it is only hope—yet it can become the very reason to keep breathing. The stakes are always frighteningly high. But hope is, by definition, based on wish or feeling or want—chance. One thing hope is not: It isn’t certain.

Hope is one of the main ingredients of faith, and faith finds its basis in being certain of the illogical and intangible. It is a very strange thing, hope. It can draw you in, but it can mangle you in the process. It certainly is not safe—of this, I can be sure. It is not always alluring. No, to the contrary, it is sometimes revolting.

There is only one facet of it I know to be true: Hope is not always beautiful, but it is always necessary.

Chapter One

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