Unwavering Hope

This episode contains portions from the following programs:

"Crumbling World, Unshakable God"

"Being Honest with God"

"Unaware of the Countdown"

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Dannah Gresh: In the face of difficulties and trials, you and I need something . . . hope! 

We know the Sunday school answer, that because of Jesus we have hope. But in real life, do people really experience peace in those horrible moments?

The answer is yes, they can. They can experience unwavering hope, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Hi, and welcome to Revive Our Hearts Weekend. I’m Dannah Gresh. 

Bob and I hit a bit of our own upheaval this past year. Illness. A long slow one that took my sweet husband out of everyday life for many weeks, months really. It was lonely . . . and hard. Everything felt upside down. There was nothing easy about that period of time. And yet, I had this absolute certainty, each and every day without a shadow of a doubt, that even though my world felt upside down, Jesus was still very much right side up. I knew He was handling it. I had unwavering hope. You can experience that, too! No matter how big your difficulty may be.

Today we’re going to hear the stories of two very big, two tragic situations—moments in the lives of two different women. I want you to hear how God ministered to them in their difficulties. 

I also want you to try to apply what these women learned to whatever challenges you're facing right now. 

Before we get to Elizabeth—oh you’re going to love her—here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth to remind us of something we already know.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Our world is in turmoil. If you’re one of these people who follows the 24/7 barrage of breaking news, you find your blood pressure keeps going up, and you feel stressed, you feel unsettled.

There have been, over these last several weeks, storms of all kinds in our country and in our world. When I say “our country” I’m speaking of the United States, but we have listeners from all around the world.

• There have been literal storms and fires and hurricanes and storms of various weather types.
• There have been political storms galore here in the United States. We’re still very much in the middle of one, and I don’t think Election Day that’s all going to go away. I’m sure it’s not, because there’s pride, and there’s anger, and there’s contention, and there’s storms.
• There’s violence in our streets.
• There’s social unrest and upheaval.
• There is injustice. (There has been since the book of Genesis, and there will be until Jesus comes back.)
• There’s deception.
• There’s mudslinging.
• There’s vitriol.

I don’t know what other words I can use to describe the kind of environment in which we are living today. And as Christians, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by all of that. It’s a tidal wave of ungodliness on every side. And we just feel like—whew—it’s pushing over us. It’s pushing us down. It’s exhausting.

And to add to all that, there’s this blatant rejection of biblical morality and a biblical worldview in all venues and on all fronts. And to experience Christians being the object of such antagonism and disrespect, this is hard. It’s wearying. It’s turbulent.

Dannah: That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, expressing the difficulties we all feel in hard times. Can we really have unwavering hope when our life is in turmoil? She’ll be back to say, "Yes, we can!" Before that, though, let’s hear from Elizabeth and Stephanie. Both of them experienced terrible loss, tremendous heartache . . . and both of them grew closer to the Lord through it all. 

Let’s start with Elizabeth Mitchell. 

Elizabeth Mitchell: I had three children. I had a wonderful husband, supportive family and church, ministering and working in commercial real estate with my husband, homeschooling our children . . . and then our fourth child was born, James Mitchell.

The doctor said, “Everything’s fine,” but they never brought him to my room. They kept telling us from the nurse’s station, “We’re warming him up.” A few hours later a lady in a blue coat walked into my maternity suite and said, “Mrs. Mitchell, I am the neonatologist.”

I remember, Dannah, springing off that bed as if I’d been whipped. I said, “Is anything wrong?” She said, “There might be.” As the day unfolded, we discovered that James had transposition of the great vessels and two other heart defects.

Dannah: This meant that, in little James’s heart, his two main arteries were switched, so the blood that had oxygen was being routed to his lungs and the blood with no oxygen was being sent to his body. It’s supposed to be the other way around. Here’s Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: The whole thing was devastating. When we first heard the news, I remember wanting to reach over to that pediatric cardiologist and turn her off as she was telling us all the deformities he had. I wanted to turn her off like you would a terrible TV show . . . and she just kept on.

Dannah: James was immediately flown from Florida to Boston for surgery. Elizabeth found comfort and strength in the word of God.

Elizabeth: Sitting on that plane, I opened up the Bible. I wasn’t interested in eating or watching anything. He took me to Psalm 20. It’s such an incredible Scripture! I want to read it to you.

It says:

May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble!
   May the name of the God of Jacob protect you!
May he send you help from the sanctuary
   and give you support from Zion! . . .

May he grant you your heart's desire
   and fulfill all your plans! . . . 

Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed;
   he will answer him from his holy heaven
   with the saving might of his right hand.
Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
   but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
(Psalm 20:1–2, 4, 6–7)

That was as if heaven opened up. God didn’t just didn't just send me a postcard; it was a one-on-one conversation with the Almighty, who let me know, “I’m fully present with you. I’m fully present with your son and husband. I will carry you through.” And so, it was His Word that was oxygen, it was water, it was bread that sustained us.

Dannah: Verse 4 says, “I will fulfill all your plans.” There probably wasn’t anything in your heart that had planned to be sitting in Boston with a newborn with some of the most devastating news a mom can ever hear!

Elizabeth: No. 

Dannah: So, how do you reconcile that with that Scripture?

Elizabeth: You cry. You cry out to God. You feel sorry for yourself for a little while. You realize that you’re not the only one dealing with terrible stuff. You cry out to other people to pray for you. You hide in His Word, and tell Him you don’t understand. You ask Him any question you want to ask Him because you know He can handle it.

He handled my doubts, my questions, my concerns, my fears—my fear that James would not live through any of this trauma, the fear that I had to abandon our other children to take care of James, the fear of the unknown, the fear that everything is absolutely out of your control.

You ask Him the questions, and you know that most of them will not have an answer. But I turned my face in His direction and begged Him for grace, begged Him for mercy for where we were. And I was honest; I didn’t pretend to be spiritual.

I knew that I had no capacity to handle any of this that was unfolding, and neither did Bill, and that we needed the Everlasting Father, and He never disappointed us.

Dannah: James grew into a young man who loved life. Elizabeth recalls the day he went home to be with Jesus.

Elizabeth: He was thirteen and playing basketball and began throwing up. We brought him home, and we went to the doctors. He had had a heart transplant when he was four-and-a-half. He was now thirteen, now eight-and-a-half years after the heart transplant and all the biopsies and all of the medication for that.

His heart was being rejected by his body. It was a complete rejection. He had a double heart attack. The second one was in our bed, in our room, which you would think would be a safe place for a child to be, so close to his parents.

We took him to the hospital, of course, in an ambulance, and they couldn’t of course do anything. His heart had totally given up. We didn’t know he had had the first heart attack, because with a heart transplant patient, the nerves are cut, so they don’t feel the pain of a normal heart attack.

He couldn’t tell us anything. We thought it was the stomach flu at first. We found out that wasn’t the case. The last thing he said was, “Mommy, I can’t breathe.” And then he was unconscious. The Lord took him home with all of his family there.

The cardiologist said, “He’s fighting still. Bill, you have to give him permission to leave.” So his Dad bent down and said, “James, it’s okay. You can go home,” and then he did.

Dannah: That’s beautiful . . . and I’m so sorry! 

In those early days of loss, what were the hard questions?

Elizabeth: Knowing God could have prevented it, knowing that God could have stopped it like He stopped all the other problems and brought good from them. Knowing we had no control, and then the loss of knowing, “Nobody can fix this, no matter how much you love us.”

No matter how much I loved Bill or he loved me, we couldn’t fix the ache in each other. It was a permanent loss that would never go away. So many other things can be fixed with time, and this one couldn’t. So it’s that sense of agony that, “This will never go away. He will give me grace to handle it, but it will never go away.” 

Just that sense that, “Will I ever be able to smile again?!” You know, I woke up that morning and I thought, I will never know joy again. “Of course, You can’t bring anything good out of this much pain!” I think I said that out loud to the Lord.

I knew the Scripture in Romans 8:28, “All things work together for good,” but it’s the “conforming to His image,” (v. 29) and that He doesn’t spare us pain. We want Him to, but in His economy He uses pain and challenges and disappointments when life is not as it should be.

He uses that to make us more like Christ. Then we become an extension of Him in the lives of other people, and they know they can trust us with their heartache, because somehow we will be able to understand their disappointment, because we’ve had such a great one.

It takes time, Dannah, and you’re not to hurry anybody through their grief—not your spouse or your children, your friend. Everybody grieves differently. You give them space and time and give them a break, knowing that you don’t fully understand their ache.

Walk beside them, but don’t lecture them, and don’t read a lot of Scriptures to them. Love them where they are, love them back.

Dannah: Wow, such a holy moment with Elizabeth Mitchell. You can hear more of that conversation, and you’ll also find a link to Elizabeth’s book, Journey for the Heart, when you go to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend, and click on today’s program.

I’m Dannah Gresh. We’re talking about how you can experience unwavering hope, even in the absolute hardest moments. Stephanie Wesco knows that peace of God that passes all understanding. 

She and her husband Charles and their eight children had just arrived in the Central African country of Cameroon as new missionaries, when tragedy struck. 

This will be disturbing for some to hear, so be advised.

Here’s Nancy, talking with Stephanie about that difficult day. 

Stephanie Wesco: So we all got in the car. We met up at Ben and Becca’s house.

Nancy: So it was you and Charles and one of your children.

Stephanie: Yes, my second son.

Nancy: And Ben, the missionary.

Stephanie: Yes.

Nancy: The other children are back home with your helper, Liberty.

Stephanie: Yes. They were with Liberty at the house.

We got in the car. I remember as we got ready to head down the hill from Ben and Becca’s house, I asked Charles to pray for the Lord’s protection as we drove. He did. I don’t remember what he said, but that’s my last memory of him.

We started driving. As we drove, I just felt this huge impression on my heart to start quoting Psalm 91.

Nancy: Could you read just a part of that for us?

Stephanie: Sure. Psalm 91 says:

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee (vv. 1–7 KJV).

Somewhere in there was about as far as I had gotten. And we were coming through Bambui . . . Bambui and Bombili kind of intertwine as villages. They’re right next to each other. So we were coming through Bambui in their version of a roundabout. As we were just coming out of that roundabout, there were two shots within a few seconds of each other fired into our vehicle. One came more from head-on, and one came more from the side.

You’re going about five miles an hour, thanks to the dirt roads and the pot holes. So you’re going very slow. My first reaction was to throw my son, Charles, Jr., eleven at the time of the shooting, down, and then I laid on top of him. About that time there was the second shot that came through.

I just remember hearing the car rev, and thinking, Ben’s not hit. The thought never even crossed my mind that Charles was hit. Looking back, he had been talking and simultaneously, he wasn’t. He had been asking Ben some questions.

We were kind of in shock at that point. My son sat up, and he said, “Dad, are you all right?” And then I just heard him scream, “Mom, Dad’s hit.” I just remember looking up and seeing what no human should ever have to see.

I remember thinking, If there is a God, He better be very real right now because we’re not going to make it through this otherwise.

Dannah: It was a seemingly random act of violence. God was very real to her. Stephanie rested in knowing that in the plan of our sovereign God, nothing happens by chance. 

She didn’t realize it until later, but Charles was instantly with the Lord. Ben continued on toward the nearest clinic, a drive of still more than thirty minutes.

Stephanie: I remember staring at that mud block wall and thinking, Lord, we have no one but You. You’re the only one that could intervene now.

Looking back, there’s all of the “whys”; there is all of the things I won’t understand. But six weeks before we had left for Cameroon, at my son Samuel’s sixth birthday party, he had been talking to them about all of the crowns that God promises to believers.

Nancy: The rewards talked about in the New Testament.

Stephanie: The last one I remember that he talked about with them was the martyr’s crown.

I got so mad at him that night. It was the end of September—less than six weeks before he would die. He was talking about that crown almost like he wanted it.

I remember that I said to him, “You have eight kids. How can you even think about desiring the martyr’s crown.”

He was like, “Oh, Honey, not now. But when I’m older . . . We have a lot of years to serve the Lord in Cameroon.”

He said, “If you’re going to die anyway, what better way to meet Jesus than having given your life for Him?”

Then he proceeded to say, “The quickest, easiest way would be a shot to the head.”

I remember standing in that clinic there in Cameroon less than six weeks later thinking, In some sense, God gave Charles (I don’t want to sound morbid) . . . But Charles desired to give his life for the Lord, be it in life or in death. That was his consuming passion. God gave him both desires.

He had served the Lord to the fullest in this life. And even in death . . . The doctor said that he never suffered; he never felt a thing. It was like God gave him that desire of his heart, too.

After they washed me off as good as they could, I went back over by Charles's bed. They were pushing me out. They didn’t want me in there. But I grabbed his phone. They had taken his socks off. His feet are always the last thing I’ll remember since I didn’t want to look at his face. It was a mess.

But I looked at his feet and thought of that verse that says, “How beautiful are the feet of them who bring the gospel of peace.”

His feet were the most beautiful thing to me. One of his shoes had fallen out from the car when they drug his body out. That shoe still has Cameroonian dirt all over it.

It’s just a reminder to me that Charles died giving his life for the most precious reason in the world. Beauty isn’t the thing we think of when we think of death. But because of the reason that Charles died, giving the gospel, it’s a beautiful thing.

Dannah: Stephanie Wesco tells the whole story in a powerful series from Revive Our Hearts called "Gunshots in Cameroon." You’ll find a link to it when you go to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend, and click on today’s episode, “Unwavering Hope.”

Both Elizabeth and Stephanie found comfort and unwavering hope in horrible situations as the Holy Spirit ministered to them through the Scriptures. 

I don’t know what difficulty you’re facing right now, but I do know this: you need to be taking in God’s Word on a regular basis, too. This past year during my difficult season, the days I was in the Word were bearable. The days I missed it, I started sinking in the waves! In all times, you need to make it a daily habit to soak in God’s Word, especially in the hard times. To help you do that, can I point you to our resource of the month? It’s a year-long daily devotional book by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth called Revive My Heart. This month that devotional is our gift to you as a way of thanking you for your donation of any amount.

You can give a gift at ReviveOurHearts.com/Donate. When you do, you’ll be able to request Nancy’s one-year devotional book. Again, it’s ReviveOurHearts.com/Donate. 

Next week we’ll continue anchoring our souls to the hope we find in the Lord. 

I’m Dannah Gresh. Thanks for listening today. We’ll close our time by hearing once more from Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.  

Nancy: Remember that no matter how bad things get, this is not the end of the story! Verse 7 of Mark chapter 13:

When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, don’t be alarmed; these things must take place, but it is not yet the end.

These are the beginning of birth pains; it’s not the end!

You see, we become so despairing and discouraged and depressed if we think that the way the world is going, the trajectory it’s on, which is horrific . . . If we give in to hopelessness and fear, we’re losing perspective. Jesus said, “This is not the end!” It’s getting ready for the end, it’s moving us toward the end, it’s necessary for the end, but it’s not the end!

The story ends with Jesus as King forever and ever and ever! The best is yet to come! If you’re a child of God you know that, you believe that, you claim it. Jesus promised there would be tribulation, but listen to what He also promised:

“Indeed, an hour is coming, and has come, when each of you will be scattered to his own home, and you will leave me alone. [You will desert Me, you will abandon Me.] Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. I have told you these things so that in me you may have [what?] peace.”

Peace! Peace in troubled times, peace during labor pains, peace during the world upside-down and inside-out, in tumult and turmoil. He said, “You will have suffering in this world.” But you know, suffering and peace can go hand-in-hand. He’s told you these things.

“You will have suffering, but I’ve told you these things so that You may have peace. Be courageous! I have conquered the world” (John 16:32–33).

He said, “I have conquered the world!” We can’t see it yet; we see it with eyes of faith. But one day prayer will become praise and faith will become sight, and then the end will come, and Jesus will reign forever and ever and ever! Amen!

In the meantime, be alert, be on your guard, don’t be deceived, and expect trouble—not just a little bit of trouble, but a lot of trouble. But keep your eyes beyond that on the finish line. Amen!

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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