Life After the Storm – II

SPEAKER 03 : 0:00

Hello, everyone. You’re listening to Family Talk, a radio broadcasting ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute. I’m Dr. James Dobson, and thank you for joining us for this program.

SPEAKER 04 : 0:18

Well, welcome to Family Talk, the broadcast division of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. I’m Roger Marsh, so very glad you’ve joined us today. Now, last time here on the Family Talk broadcast, we began a powerful conversation with author, Bible study leader, podcaster, and speaker Jan Harrison, who shared the heartbreaking moment when she and her husband Frank learned that their 27-year-old son James had unexpectedly passed away while serving in the mission field in Africa. Today here on Family Talk, we will conclude this moving two-part program as Jan reveals how her family found strength in Christ during their darkest hours. Jan and her husband Frank do have three grown daughters and make their home in Charlotte, North Carolina. Together they founded With Open Eyes, a ministry born from their son’s mission work. Five years after losing James, Jan published her book called Life After the Storm, God Will Carry You Through. And in the past couple of weeks, Jan has released a newly expanded and updated edition of this classic work that you need to take a look at to see how the story is going in terms of Jan and Frank and their family and how God is guiding them through the grief process even still. For more information on how you can secure a copy of Jan Harrison’s brand new edition of Life After the Storm, God Will Carry You Through, go to drjamesdobson.org forward slash family talk. In today’s conversation here on the Family Talk broadcast, Jan Harrison will offer practical wisdom about the grieving process. She’ll also explain how suffering can actually expand our capacity for God’s presence in our lives. She’ll also share how the Lord has given her a spacious place, as she calls it, a new purpose in using her journey to bring hope to others facing similar trials. And now, let’s join Dr. James Dobson and his special guest, Jan Harrison, for the conclusion of their conversation right here, on Family Talk.

SPEAKER 02 : 2:14

It is profound, but it was very simple. These were in the days immediately following James’s death. And our pastor was there, and he looked at me and he said, ìWeíre not going to tell you how to grieve.î because grief belongs to you, and this is your relationship, and nobody knows but you and the Lord. All is involved here. But he said, I want to say this, there is nothing you can do that is wrong. And over those months after the initial period of time, and we settled into now husband and wife and grieving and loss and dealing. We dealt very differently. Thankfully, because both of us were hanging on to eternal truth, though we comforted each other, Neither one of us depended on the other one to be the comforter. We simply knew it was too big and too hard and too deep. My relationship as a mom, I had to accept he could not understand some of my mother’s strengths. And when if I got frustrated or if I would think, Frank went into a male, or it seemed to me, a male response, which was do more, go harder, give more. I went into more of a withdraw and shut down. We gave each other permission and freedom. And when I would get like, you’re just doing all these things, I would hear that Nothing he does is wrong. This is his grief, and it is between him and the Lord. And so we cried together. We prayed together. We took space from each other. And God just protected us. That’s really why we are in a statistic.

SPEAKER 03 : 4:39

Another way of describing that, Jan, is that you allowed each other to grieve in your own particular way and didn’t demand the same response from your spouse that you were feeling.

SPEAKER 02 : 4:54

Right. And it didn’t come at the same time. Sometimes if he would want to bring something up and I would think, I’m feeling kind of okay right now. Do you have to go there? I would think, but it’s surfacing for him right now. And I think he did the same for me. We just, God just gave us the grace to grieve together but separate. And we still do. He has been gracious with me, and I have been gracious with him.

SPEAKER 03 : 5:24

It’s now been five years. Have you turned a corner?

SPEAKER 02 : 5:27

The summer of right before the fourth year, we went on a family vacation. We take everybody in the whole family, children, spouses, their children. And I remember when I came home, it was just an especially sweet time. And when I came home and I was looking back thinking, wonder what was so good about that, I realized for the first time I had come to peace with our new normal. And I say that, and then just last night—

SPEAKER 01 : 6:10

For some reason, this time, I said, I wish James was coming.

SPEAKER 03 : 6:17

There’s still an empty place in your heart.

SPEAKER 01 : 6:20

It always will be, and it should be. It’s okay.

SPEAKER 03 : 6:24

When you have lost someone, as you have, or when a woman is suddenly a widow, or a man is a widower, there’s something called the attack. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of that concept before, but you kind of come to a plateau where you feel like you’re dealing with it. and you feel like you’re getting over the grief, and then you’re in a grocery store and you see something or you run into somebody out in the business world, and it’s suddenly back. It’s the attack because you really haven’t totally conquered it yet. But the Lord understands those processes as well. Now, when we started the program last time, I talked about your having broken this subject into three categories in your book that I think is good, but I want you to explain it. And you called the first one Storms Will Gather. Elaborate on what you were saying.

SPEAKER 02 : 7:39

Well, it’s that reality that there will be storms. And I don’t know why that shocks us. As we’ve already said, Jesus forecast them and predicted them and told us we would have them. He knows what’s out there. So it seems to me if we know we’re going to have a storm that we would get ready. We would store our provisions and we would become prepared. God loves us. He didn’t put us here to go through trouble but leave us without the tools necessary to survive. So it’s hard to get supplied when you’re in the storm. And so no day is better than today than to start to stock your supplies for survival.

SPEAKER 03 : 8:30

How do you do that? How do you prepare for something you haven’t yet experienced?

SPEAKER 02 : 8:34

Well, the first thing you need to do is engage in that relationship, that personal relationship with the Lord. It’s Not going to carry you through to be a member of a church and to be on a church roll. And it’s not going to carry you through just to go and sit and listen to a sermon once a week. You need to become actively involved, just like you do in your own interpersonal relationships. It takes two. And God is there for us. And so, you know, you need Him. You need Jesus. He said… I have overcome the world. So in me, you have the power to do that. You need to know his word. That is a supply. That is a powerful supply. It is your guide. It will tell you where to go and what to do. It’s how I had that power. That knowing that He was always there, even when He didn’t speak, because I knew His Word, and I knew He said He would never leave me or forsake me. He gave us His Spirit, and His Spirit gives us light, and it witnesses to our inner being. This isn’t crazy. This isn’t just… hoping for a better day. This is truth, and I know it’s truth. He gives us the body of Christ. That’s another supply. The people that stepped up and stepped in on our behalf when that storm struck, Because of some of Frank’s connections in Africa, there are some women there that were very well-connected Kenyan women. They were businesswomen, and they happened to also be born-again believers. And One of them actually attended his autopsy just in order to witness its accuracy. She did that as just an act of love and of care. In fact, we have so many questions, things we don’t know, but we know that because she was there. I think Frank asked her when he saw her, have you ever done something like this before? And she said no. Another one of them went and shopped to buy clothes so that he would be properly dressed when his father arrived. And she bought a pair of khaki pants and a blue Oxford cloth shirt and a red tie for his body so that when his father came, he would be dressed like a Western young man. When I went to Kenya myself about 10 months later, I had the opportunity to meet these women for breakfast to just tell them thank you. Thank you for stepping in, and thank you for gifting us in a way that we could never repay you. And that was her response. It was my reasonable act of service unto the Lord. That’s the body of Christ.

SPEAKER 04 : 11:48

I’m Roger Marsh, jumping in here for a moment here on this Family Talk program to remind you that we are listening to a very reassuring interview featuring our own Dr. James Dobson and his special guest, Jan Harrison. Now, if you’re just tuning in, Jan is discussing how she and her family overcame the sudden loss of their son, James. He passed away in Africa while doing mission work. The following days, weeks, and months were extremely difficult for Jan, and yet Jesus helped her through her grief and gave her hope. And now let’s rejoin Dr. James Dobson and his guest Jan Harrison for the conclusion of this special edition of Family Talk.

SPEAKER 03 : 12:28

Well, the first category is storms will gather. They’re going to. I mean, don’t be surprised by them. They are inevitable. The second category is storms strike. Explain that one.

SPEAKER 02 : 12:43

They happen, and you’re in it. And if you’re supplied, you will be far better at it. able to weather it. They happen to everybody. It rains on the good and the evil. So as believers, it is our opportunity to test God’s Word, and we will find Him true. You will find Him true to who He says He is. I really hope that this book will be a reference tool. For some people, there are parts that don’t necessarily apply. So what they are finding, I’m told, is that— They can use parts, but then it prepares them to walk with someone else. It equips them to be a stronger member of the body of Christ. It helps them to know how to pray. Recently, a group asked me, okay, tell us what to say and what not to say. I told our girls we were leaving to go to the memorial, and they I circle up and I said, okay, y’all just get ready because people are going to say stupid things and they don’t even mean it. It’s not on purpose. So I said, in Jesus’ name, we’re not going to receive them as an offense. And we would just, after it was all over, we would just marvel. I think I shared in the book about a person probably a few months later who saw me in the grocery store, and she was so unsure of what to say that she did a U-turn with her grocery cart. I knew it wasn’t, and I thought, okay, don’t take it as an offense. She simply does not know what to say.

SPEAKER 03 : 14:43

Who helped you the most, Jen?

SPEAKER 02 : 14:45

Our pastor was awesome. It’s not like he like lingered around like a lot, but our church family was very much there for us. But another thing he said, and it was so clear, but he looked at us like, you know, eyeball to eyeball. And he said, okay, now listen, James was in London. James was in Charlotte. James was in Kenya. James is in heaven. Heaven is as real as all of those other places. So you know where he is. So what’s the problem? And it just gave me such an ability to place him. But, you know, these were the two things that the girls and I came away with after we downloaded on all of the crazy things people said and did. We said, if you know them, you say, I love you and I’m sorry.

SPEAKER 03 : 15:45

And I’m praying for you.

SPEAKER 02 : 15:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER 03 : 15:48

You have a phrase in your book that I think is good, but I want you to explain it. You need to move from what if thinking to even if thinking.

SPEAKER 02 : 16:00

I think we get really hung up on all of the what if problems, all of the scenarios and possibilities that could happen. Whether it’s from miscarriage or whether you’ve been in an adulterous relationship, what if? He does it again. What if my child drops out of college? What if all of those things, and they can hold us captive. And I loved the portion in Daniel where Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

SPEAKER 03 : 16:38

I was going to tell you that just as soon as you stopped. That’s one of my favorite verses.

SPEAKER 02 : 16:43

And they say, but even if, even if our God is able to, And that just fans faith inside of me to just remember that the what if, go ahead and run it out there because even if,

SPEAKER 03 : 17:04

Let me put flesh on that story because there they are in the fiery furnace. Everybody knows what happens to a person who’s put in a furnace. And yet Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said, our God can take care of this. This is okay. But if not… We will serve him anyway. You talk about faith. That’s the best explanation of it I’ve seen.

SPEAKER 02 : 17:32

And those are just the truths that when we have those, God calls them back to us.

SPEAKER 03 : 17:39

The third category is after the storm. Are you in the post-storm era now with regard to your son?

SPEAKER 02 : 17:49

Yes, I am in the post-storm era. It is a spacious place that God has enlarged my heart to allow Him to use me and to use us and to use the storm to encourage and offer hope to other people.

SPEAKER 03 : 18:11

And what do you mean by a spacious place?

SPEAKER 02 : 18:14

By a spacious place, I mean that suffering stretches you. It stretches your spirit. It stretches your faith. I’m using the word stretches where sometimes people would say tries it, and it does try it. But in the trying, God enlarges our capacity to see Him work and to allow Him to fill us and to allow Him to demonstrate His strength where we know we are so weak. So the spacious place is when you come to that acceptance that God will use this and you are being asked to release it and surrender it and let him take it.

SPEAKER 03 : 19:05

And you also are able to have empathy for other people who are hurting in the same way that you have hurt.

SPEAKER 02 : 19:14

Yes. You know, Paul told us that we have been comforted so that we can comfort others in their affliction. And it even goes on at the end of that verse, and it says, “…our comfort is abundant.” in Christ. So after the storm, I started to realize not only was I comforted, but I had an abundance of comfort. That means I had more than enough. I had an extra measure. I had enough for me, enough for my family, enough to give because He gives abundant comfort. And if I would allow him, it’s almost like the more I was willing to give comfort, the more comforted I became.

SPEAKER 03 : 20:09

Yeah. All right, let’s close with this. We’re almost out of time. Did you ever at any point along the way, especially early on, get angry at God and blame him for the fact that this happened?

SPEAKER 02 : 20:24

I never got angry. I did ask the questions, why and where were you? What about all those prayers prayed? What about the deliberate act of surrendering, James, to you, Lord, and telling you we would trust you? With all of our children, with our lives, we trust you, Lord, to do what is best. You don’t just want good for them. You want best for them. And I love that God showed me you can ask him the questions. He wants to minister to us in those places. But he also has shown me and showed me as a result of all of that, that I can take your very worst news and I can use it to give good news to people every single day. That blesses me. It heals me until all things become clear one day.

SPEAKER 03 : 21:40

The title of the book is Life After the Storm, God Will Carry You Through by Jan Harrison. It was published by Harvest House. And Jan, if I had to boil it all down to one phrase or one word, it would be peace. It is that you can have peace in the midst of the storm.

SPEAKER 02 : 22:01

Absolutely. I came to give you peace, is what Jesus said.

SPEAKER 03 : 22:07

Thank you for being our guest. You’re continuing to write, aren’t you?

SPEAKER 02 : 22:11

I am. I am learning and growing and excited about the next project.

SPEAKER 03 : 22:17

And you’re speaking and you’re available to speak.

SPEAKER 02 : 22:20

I am. My heart is to just minister, to help people make those steps towards hope, to trust God, to know that he will carry them through and that he will give them a spacious place.

SPEAKER 03 : 22:37

God be with you.

SPEAKER 04 : 22:43

Even in our most devastating losses, God offers not just comfort, but transformation, turning our grief into a sacred space where we can minister to others who are hurting as well. You’re listening to Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, and we just heard the conclusion of a two-part conversation featuring Dr. Dobson and Jan Harrison in her moving testimony of finding hope after the sudden loss of her son, James. Now, if you missed any part of today’s conversation, or if you’d like to go back and hear part one as well, you can do so on the Family Talk app or by visiting drjamesdobson.org forward slash Family Talk. While you’re there, you can also learn more about the ministry With Open Eyes that was founded by Jan and her husband, Frank, along with their son, James. And it continues the mission’s work her son began in Africa. It now extends to more than 18 countries. You’ll also find a link for the newly updated and expanded edition of her book, Life After the Storm, God Will Carry You Through, which offers wisdom for anyone seeking God’s presence in difficult seasons. Now, the book was just released last week, so you’ll want to check out this new edition of Jan Harrison’s book, Life After the Storm, God Will Carry You Through. And we’ve got a link for it up at drjamesdobson.org forward slash family talk. Here at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, we are committed to strengthening families through biblical truth and practical wisdom. We’ll be right back. and the biblical principles on which it is based. Your tax-deductible donation today helps us continue broadcasting these programs to millions of listeners all across America and all around the world. Now you can make a tax-deductible donation online at drjamesdobson.org. You can also reach us over the phone when you call 877-732-6825. A member of our team will be happy to take your donation, also to pray with you and for you if that’s what you need as well. And if you’re looking for biblical wisdom and practical guidance for your family on the go, be sure to download the free JDFI app. You can get instant access to family talk broadcasts, marriage and parenting resources, and inspiring content from Dr. Dobson and other trusted voices. The JDFI app puts five decades of family expertise right at your fingertips. And remember, you can download it for free from your app store. Well, I’m Roger Marsh, and for all of us here at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, thanks so much for making us a part of your day. Be sure to join us again next time right here for another edition of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk. This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.