Close Up: Sharon A. Hersh

Latest project: Begin Again, Believe Again: Embracing the Courage to Love With Abandon (Zondervan).

Resides in: Lone Tree, Colo.

You have addressed women in this book, but who in that group were you particularly writing for? "For women who have dreamed and hoped and prayed and believed in relationships and have experienced the inevitable disappointment, difficulty and even heartbreak that can come as we live and love in relationships, and we get discouraged. We have conflicts that we can't resolve. We have children who go different directions than we originally dream of. We get lonely and we give up. This book is to encourage women to begin again and believe again."

You observe that relationships are often the source of our pain. What is the place of pain in our lives? "I do think it is in relationships, as we encounter difficulties or dreams that are shattered or a heartbreak that comes because we do want too much in relationships. And where we get into trouble is we begin to believe that this ache for more is only to be experienced in human relationships rather than understanding that this beautiful ache for more is really intended to take us from the human relationship to the divine relationship."

You disclose some personal things in this book. How did you work up the courage to do that? "Sometimes I question that myself. But I do know that years ago I wrote a book called Bravehearts, which was a book about the same subject. It's about our longing for relationships, and I said in that book that God gave us this longing to lead us to life of love. And I kind of thought back then that I knew what I wanted and along the way I've experienced some heartache and a broken marriage and some of the inevitable difficulties that come in raising children. My children are now adults and have experienced some difficulties themselves. It's through those experiences, some broken friendships, a church that split where dear, dear friends, where they were on one side and I was on the other that I began to realize that relationships are not the end. They are the means to end. And the ending of our stories was always intended to be Jesus."

If you had to sum up how women can learn to begin again after a loss, what would you say? "It's about Jesus. It's not about everything working out, but it is about really knowing Him and trusting Him that in our longing for more, as we begin to believe that there is One who longs for more than we do, whose entire story is about His longing for relationships with us, who is willing to forgive again, to risk again in us even when we have failed, then we, in turn, can forgive again, risk again, to hope again, to dwell in the possibilities, not just in everything that's broken and falling apart, but in the possibilities of what could be around the corner, not because we're convinced that this will be the thing that works out, but because we know that this, too, will allow us to know more about Him. When I surrender to that, then the difficulties along the way, they may still be painful, they will still be painful, but they're not so outrageously anxiety provoking because I've surrendered. It's not about making life work. It's about knowing Him and being known by Him."

• Prev
• Next