I’d gotten to Virginia Beach earlier than I anticipated. Since my former roommate and host wasn’t home, I decided to meet a former coworker in the parking lot of the place I once worked.
After catching up a bit, I noticed a car in the parking lot, “Oh hey, isn’t that TJ’s car?” I said remembering the time he came over to help my roommate and I move a futon.
I turned to look back at my former coworker who stared back at me like a deer in the headlights…
Today, I want to introduce to you Lauren Pearson. TJ’s wife and now dear friend. I have been amazed at her transparency and grace during the last four years. Please welcome Lauren Pearson.
In November of 2017, less than two months after our wedding, my husband TJ was hospitalized for the first time. After performing a surgical biopsy, the ENT oncologist found me in the waiting room and told me that my beloved husband had stage IV throat cancer for the second time, as well as a blood clot in his jugular vein that was causing a lot of discomfort. TJ was in the ICU for several days before we were released to go home and begin an eleven month journey that would ultimately end in his death only a month after our first anniversary. So many horribly hard lessons were learned during the course of the journey, but some lessons weren’t learned until long after he was gone.
That first week in the hospital, I left TJ’s side one morning to go to the chapel to pray. Someone had just emailed me and said that Pat Robertson was going to pray for him on the 700 Club that morning, and I sat on the chapel floor to watch the clip, tears pouring down my face. “TJ Pearson. He’s one of our own,” Pat said gently as he prayed for his faithful employee, asking God to spare TJ’s life.
From somewhere deep inside of me, the song “Tis so Sweet to Trust in Jesus” came to mind as I watched my husband being prayed for on national television. Laying on the hospital chapel floor, I sang it over and over again and wept and wept. I could barely get out the words, and I didn’t care who heard me in the busy hallway on the other side of the door. I had to remind myself that Jesus was still worthy of my trust.
Back up in the ICU, I wrapped my arms around my beloved husband and sang the song over him. He needed to be reminded, too, though his faith was so often stronger than mine.
Months later, I sat alone in the painful silence of my living room. The funeral was over. The leave of absence from work had ended. Life was back to “normal,” whatever that means, and I was alone. From somewhere deep inside of me, the hymn came back, but now thinking about it made me feel betrayed. Could it really be sweet to trust in Jesus? As I sat at the piano in my living room, the song began to pour out of me, but this time it came out as a lament. I meant the words, but I also meant the cries that came forth as the interlude of the song took on a new, haunting melody.
It may be sweet to trust in Jesus, but sometimes life itself is the very opposite of sweet. Sometimes our hearts are broken. Sometimes we weep on hospital floors. Sometimes we even lose the one who we love most in all the world, but that doesn’t mean that Jesus isn’t still very much worth trusting. I have learned that there are times to weep and there are times to rejoice, but sometimes there are also moments when the two come forth simultaneously and there’s no way of knowing where one ends and the other begins. If there is one thing I know, it’s that Jesus is okay with us expressing both emotions. That is exactly what He did when Lazarus died. He declared the truth, but He also wept. He spoke about the spiritual reality of what was happening while also experiencing the full weight of the moment in the natural. I believe that He asks us to do the same.
The exercise of trusting Jesus through pain instead of running away from Him is a daily one, but it’s the only way to keep moving forward. May we learn to trust Him daily, no matter how much it hurts. He is there both to empower us to trust and to hold us in our sorrow.
My coworker eventually told me that TJ had passed away I stood there in shock. TJ and I had worked together several times on remote shoots. I knew he’d gotten married. When I found out he passed away I knew I needed to meet Lauren. I got her number through friends and told her I was in town if she was able to meet. She graciously met me. That was the only face to face interaction I’ve had with Lauren but we have remained in communication.
I asked Lauren to write a little of her story because it’s out of her loss that her album, “magnificent desolation” was birthed. I listened in awe when I put on her music.
I know more than anything she would want TJ back over an album but instead of letting her grief destroy her she’s allowed it to remake her. Please check out her CD. I promise you will be so glad you do. Thank you, Lauren. I’m so grateful and honored to know you. I know TJ would be so proud of you. Keep changing the world one note, one chord, and one song at a time.
