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Cedarville UniversityDigitalCommons@Cedarville
Alumni Book Gallery
2010
Beyond the Valley: Finding Hope in Life's LossesDave Branon
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/alum_books
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Recommended CitationBranon, Dave, "Beyond the Valley: Finding Hope in Life's Losses" (2010). Alumni Book Gallery. 243.https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/alum_books/243
Beyond the Valley: Finding Hope in Life's Losses
DisciplinesFamily, Life Course, and Society
PublisherDiscovery House Publishers
Publisher's NoteTaken from Beyond the Valley: Finding Hope in Life's Losses by Dave Branon © 2010 by Dave Branon. Used bypermission of Discovery House, Grand Rapids MI, 49501. All rights reserved.
ISBN9781572933736
This book is available at DigitalCommons@Cedarville: https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/alum_books/243
J
finding hope in life's losse
BRANON
~ DI COVE RY Hou E
PUBLISHERS*
© 2010 by Dave Branon
A ll rights reserved.
Discovery House Publishers is affiliated with RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids,
Michigan.
Discovery House books are distributed to the trade exclusively by Barbour Publishing, Inc., Uhrichsville, Ohio.
Requests for permission to quote from this book should be directed to: Permis
sions Department, Discovery House Publishers, P.O. Box 3566, Grand Rapids,
Ml 49501.
"I till Believe" by Jeremy Camp, copyright © 2002 Stolen Pride Music
(ASCAP) Thirsty Moon River Pub!. Inc. (ASCAP) (adm. by EMI CMG Publishing) . All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VER
SION"'· NI . Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permis
sion of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
Interior de 1gn by Melis a Elenbaas
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Branon, Dave.
Beyond the valley : finding hope in life's losses/ Dave Branon. p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-57293-373-6
1. Loss (Psychology)--Religious aspects--Christianity. 2. Consolation.
l. Title.
BV4905.3.B73 2010
248.8'6--dc22 2010010930
Printed in the United rate of America
10 11 12 13 14 / / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
j,
Introduction 7
1. THE LORD, MY SHEPHERD 11
The God Father 11 Decisions, Decisions 16
The Big Unanswerable 21 A Complete Life 26
Random Act? 30
2. I SHALL NOT WANT 35
Wants and Promises 35 Are You Crazy? 41
Grace Alone 44 Up or Down? Which Is It? 47
3. HE LEADS ME 53 -
Remembering the Great Sufferer 53 The Promise: Take What You Can Get 56
Keep Calling 61 The Weeping One 64
4. HE RESTORES MY SOUL 69
What Have I Done? 69 A Little Help Here! 73
"Where Is Your God?" 77 Heart Cry 81
The One and Only 85
5. FEARING NO EVIL 89
Like a Death 89 Blessings and Disabilities 93
Lost But Not Gone 96 Helping or Helpless? 100
The Road Ahead 103
6. YOU ARE WITH ME 107
Never Alone 107 "H G d I ' M I" 111 ey, o , ts e. Are You Listening? 115
Keep on Praying 119
7. MY COMFORT 123
Inseparable Love 123 Happy? Is It Possible? 127
Renewal 131 Continue in God's Love 135
8. GOODNESS AND MERCY FOLLOW 139
No Pioneers 139 Can It Ever Be Well? 143
Young Death 148 Who's Your Titus? 152
9. FOREVER 157
Griever's Theology 157 I Could Sing, Maybe 162
Racing to Heaven 165 Keep Telling Me That! 169
Tent Dwellers 172
INTRODUCTION
I never planned to have valleys on the topographical map of my life. My map, as I saw it, would always consist of the high road. The smooth road. The pathway lit up by God's love and decorated with His gift of the abundant life. It was to be the journey of the trying,to,be,godly,but,appreciating,a, forgiving,God Christian. The walk of the trusting believer.
Yet here I am, still surprised and shocked to be walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
The way I figured it, my wife and I would raise up our four kids in the way they should go, and when we were old they would all be there to take care of us.
We were thirty years into this marriage,and,family thing, and we were enjoying God's continued blessing.
We loved the stuffing out of life. Not that every day was always easy and full of smiles and laughing, but for the most part, our direction was still heading securely toward the road to blessedness. Up on the mountain. Far from the valley.
Take Thursday, June 6, 2002, for instance. It was a typical day in the light of God's grace. In fact,
it was a bright, sunny, warm day that reminded us that the good times of summer were about to shine across our lives. And since it was the last day of school, our kids were enjoy, mg the lightheartedness of impending vacation.
7
8 BEYOND THE VALLEY
At home on that evening, my fifteen,year,old son Steve and I had settled in to keep an eye on the Detroit Red Wings' hockey game. We weren't huge hockey fan , but this was the Stanley Cup playoff and these were our Red Wings, so we were tuned in.
Julie, our second,oldest daughter, had just come home from her ummer job at a grocery store, reminding us again that thi job made her extremely thankful that she had just graduated from college and would soon be heading for her first teaching job at a Christian school in Florida.
Indeed, the si ter -Julie, Lisa (our oldest, who lived in Ohio with her husband Todd and was a schoolteacher), and our youngest daughter, Meli sa-had already purchased plane tickets for an all, i ter vacation in Orlando, Florida. The isters (born strategically four year apart, each in July) were to take in the wonderful world of Di ney, and then the J
rest of us would show up at Pompano Beach to move Julie and her tuff into her place near the Chri tian school where she would be debuting as a teacher.
The ummer looked bright enough to call for sungla se . But back to our June 6 evening. Sue, my wife, was read,
ing the paper, winding down her day and preparing to go to bed. She had to be on the job early the next day at the nurs, ing home where he was a nur e-and where Meli sa worked part,time. Mell, too, would be working on Friday.
Sue didn't want to go to bed until he knew Melis a was safely home. Mell was at a cottage on Lake Michigan with some chool friend where the parent hosted an end,of, chool party of pizza, jet-skiing, and just good time . Melissa
Introduction 9
had called her mom at eight o'clock to tell us she would be on her way home with her boyfriend Jordan at nine.
The path of our life had been o direct. Four kids. Four kids who had trusted Jesus and made us proud. The pathway of a family with its eye on loving each other and honoring God in life. We could ee the valley, but it seemed so far away a to be inaccessible.
Yet at just after nine p.m. on that gorgeous Michigan spring night, our live veered off the path we thought would be ours for the rest of our time on earth. We careened off that pathway and went straight into the valley-an unfamil, iar, dark, and deep ravine of near hopelessness.
While Jordan and Meli a were on their way home that evening, traveling on an unfamiliar road, Jordan pulled his car into an intersection-where it wa hit broadside by another teen driver.
Melissa, our seventeen,year,old daughter and sister-a girl who loved to cook odd concoctions in the kitchen, who never liked to be idle for a minute, who played varsity softball and volleyball, who had a solid though not flashy faith in Jesus, who was a bright light of joy and love to her many friend at school and church, and who had grown from a frightened little pre, schooler into a elfconfident teen-was killed instantly.
Our family wa plunged into a new exi tence. Now the mountaintop was o far away we couldn't ee it.
uddenly, and without warning, we found ourselves walk, ing numbly through the valley of the shadow of death. We were thru t into the place where we had to te t the Psalm 23 prom1 e that God's pre ence will make sure we "fear no evil."
10 BEYOND THE VALLEY
We found ourselves in a far different place than we had ever been in before.
A place where life i not a much fun as it used to be. A place where harmle s words from well,meaning others
can turn into un hakeable irritant . A place where hearing other people harmlessly laughing
often seems completely incongruous with how we feel. A place where the God we knew and loved and served
ometimes seems more mysteriou than knowable-and we realized this just at the time we needed Him the most, when we fir t arrived in the valley.
Have you ever been in the valley? The valley that comes with life's troubles and pain?
If so, or if you have ever walked with those who dwell in it mi ty atmo phere, I invite you to walk along with me for a while. A I journey, I am continually seeking the help of the One who promised never to leave me. I'm begging the One who said not to fear to give me peace. I'm plead, ing with the God of all comfort to explain what that word mean to the uncomfortable. I'm clinging with all my might to the One who aid I could never be plucked from Hi hand. I'm truggling to trust completely the One I tru ted with my daughter-knowing that he now dwell in Hi presence and not mine.
Walk with me, won't you? Together, we can find hope, olace, comfort, and ometime even joy-while seeking to
go beyond the valley.
J
