This Side of Heaven (27 page)

Yes, the characters feel real to me.

But in this book, the characters, the story line, the haunting sorrow, and the bittersweet triumphs were very close to home. You see,
This Side of Heaven
was inspired by the story of my brother, Dave. Like Josh, Dave chose to forgo college to become a tow truck driver. And like my main character, Dave pulled two teenage girls out of harm’s way and took the blow from a drunk driver one cold, wet New

Year’s Eve seven years ago. The story line about Maria Cameron is entirely fictional.

After that, the lines blur between Dave’s real story and the one that came pouring from my heart and into the pages of this book. In the real story there was no major settlement, no multimillion-dollar windfall. The lawsuit and depositions in Dave’s case all amounted to nothing more than so much extra heartache. And rather than my mom, it was I who wondered about Dave’s life—whether he had sold himself short and settled for mediocrity when he could have really been something.

Dave had struggled in his faith for many years, despite prayers and efforts on the part of me and my family and so many extended family members. We all have people in our lives like that, don’t we? People who seem determined to take the hard road in life. But for Dave, the change happened as it happened with Josh—through a Wynonna Judd country music video late one night in the solitude of his lonely apartment.

She was singing “I Can Only Imagine,” and at the end of the video, she raised her hands to our mighty God— God who in that moment became deeply real to Dave. He searched for the song and found the MP3 by a group many of you are familiar with, MercyMe. Afterward, he played that song all day and into the next, and that’s when he called me.

By then, when it came to Dave, I’d grown a little jaded. He had rejected every offer to attend church or join our weekly Bible study, so when I saw his name on the caller ID that Wednesday afternoon I figured he’d be calling for one reason—to borrow more money. I almost walked away, almost missed out on one of the greatest moments in my life. But by God’s grace and mercy, I was compelled to pick up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Karen.” I could hear the song playing in the background. “You won’t believe it.” He talked loud so he could be heard over the music. “I found this song, and it’s like I finally get it about God.”

I had to sit down just so I could process what was happening. My brother was not speaking to me in his usual stifled grunts and distant tones, but he was pouring out his heart about a change that was dramatic and undeniable. He told me about the video and about finding the song, and finally he laughed with unbridled joy. “Can I go to church with you this weekend? I mean, really. I can hardly wait.”

Dave had been hooked on OxyContin for three years by the time he found that deeper faith. He would be at one of our family get-togethers, and I’d head into the kitchen to refill the water pitchers, and he’d be standing in the kitchen, unshed tears in his eyes, gritting his teeth and clutching the countertop. Sweat would have broken out across his forehead and he’d give me an apologetic look. “I’m sorry . . . the pain is so bad, Karen. I can barely stand it.”

But once he developed a craving for God and His Word, once he found the joy of singing worship songs to the Creator of the universe, Dave no longer talked about his pain. Oh, it was still there, I’m certain of that. But it no longer defined him the way his faith and hope for the future defined him.

Every weekend for six weeks in a row, Dave attended church with us at our favorite Saturday night service and again with my parents at their service Sunday morning. I remember the service that sixth week like it was yesterday. We were running late—three of the boys still in their soccer uniforms and one holding a napkin to a suddenly bloody nose. Amid the chaos and the rush of getting the younger four boys signed into Sunday school, we hurried into the darkened sanctuary after the first song was already in progress. People were on their feet, but my brother was six foot six, and I could easily see him near the front, in the third or fourth row.

He was doing what any of us do when we’re at church waiting for someone to join us. Every few seconds he was glancing over his shoulder, searching the back of the church, looking for me. Donald and I and our two older kids took a row in the back, and I excused myself. I had to at least tell Dave we were there, and since everyone was standing, I didn’t think anyone would notice.

No one except Dave.

He saw me coming, and as I came nearer he stepped out into the aisle and pulled me into his arms. “I love you,” he whispered near my ear. “Thank you for never giving up on me.”

Our hug lasted a few more seconds, and then we shared a smile and I returned to my family at the back of the church.

It was the last time I ever saw my brother.

I was at a book signing the next Saturday, a beautiful sunny morning in October, and Dave had planned to attend my nephew’s football game. Only he never showed up. I was ten minutes into meeting with a hundred or so readers when I suddenly noticed that my husband was there. He had a strange look on his face, and my first thought was something must’ve happened to one of the kids. They were busy with soccer and theater and any number of things could have gone wrong.

I asked my next reader friend if she could wait a few seconds, and then I stepped close to Donald. “Is everything okay?”

“No, honey. It isn’t.” He took my hand and led me a few feet away, never breaking eye contact. “Your brother’s dead. He died in his sleep last night.”

What happened next was a beautiful picture of the family of God. That bookstore became a church, the readers gradually sharing the awareness of what had just happened. In no time they circled me and prayed for me, giving me the grace to spend a few minutes in the store’s break room to call my parents. In the end, I decided to stay and finish the signing because, after all, that’s what I write about—the heartache of real life, the hope of the Cross. The promise that in the end all things really do work to the good for those who love the Lord.

My reader friends that day were kind and compassionate, hugging me and telling me how sorry they were. One lady had tears in her eyes after I told her that my brother had a daughter, but that he never had the chance to know her. “I lost a grandbaby last week,” she told me. “Maybe tonight your brother is holding her in heaven.”

But even with that, and with the firm knowledge that Dave was with the Lord and no longer in pain, I had regrets. In the weeks after his death, I learned much about the goodness of my brother, his care for others and his compassion for the weak. I wondered why we didn’t take the whole family up front and sit with Dave that last time in church. And how come I’d grown distant and jaded by my attempts to invite him to Bible study, when God never grows distant and jaded with me? The one consolation that remained, the one that remains with me now, comes in the form of my brother’s final words.

“Thanks for never giving up on me.”

And so, my friends, that brings me to the reason I wrote this book. I wanted to share the story of a character like Dave who maybe wasn’t an all-star or a first-place winner or a financial success. Someone who didn’t earn a degree or gain a title or write a bestselling novel. Someone who wasn’t popular and successful the way the world defines those things. Because all of us have people in our lives like Dave, people like Josh. My challenge to you—the one that comes at great personal cost—is to look for the good in these less-noticed people.

Our pastor, Matt, said something last week that stays with me still. “Jesus was about the least, the last, and the lost.”

Yes, and we ought to be about those people, too. I would encourage all of us to renew our love for the least and last and lost in our lives, and most of all—no matter how jaded we might have grown—to never, ever give up.

For only if we keep on loving, keep on believing in these precious people, will we allow God room to work a miracle the way He did with Josh.

The way He did with Dave.

Always, as I finish a book, I spend many hours praying for you, my reader friends. Sometimes God needs to take us back in time to the place where one of our relationships became strained, to the place of new love and second chances, before we let go of our own ways and grab on to Him for life. At some point, all of us will hear the voice of God calling us back or drawing us closer in some way: through a conversation with a friend or a sermon on the radio or the loss of a loved one.

Maybe even through Life-Changing Fiction™.

If during the course of reading this book you, like Annie Warren, found yourself crying out for God to give you strength, for Him to find you again, for the chance to become the person deep inside your heart that once upon a yesterday you used to be . . . then I pray that you will connect with a Bible-believing church in your area. There, you should be able to find a Bible, if you don’t already have one. That life-saving relationship with Christ is always rooted in His truth, the Scriptures.

If you are unable to purchase a Bible or if you can’t find one at your local church, and if this is the first time you are walking into that relationship with Jesus, then write to me at my Web site,
www.KarenKingsbury.com
. Write the words “New Life” in the subject line, send me your address, and I will send you a Bible. Because between the covers of that precious book are all the secrets to a new life.

For the rest of you, I’d love to hear your thoughts on
This Side of Heaven
. My guess is that there are a great many of you out there who can relate to having a person in your life like Josh Warren. Tell me how Josh’s story and

Annie’s new understanding about her son spoke to you, and how it maybe even changed you.

Contact me at my Web site, and while you’re there, take a moment to look at the ways you can get involved with the community of other Karen Kingsbury readers. You can leave a prayer request or pray for someone else, tell me about an active military hero or a fallen one, and send me a picture so that all the world can pray for your soldier. You can also join my club and chat with other readers about your favorite characters and books.