I’m Britton Sharp, and this is how I’m living deeply.  

“The past few years have been pretty rough. My dad passed suddenly during COVID. No pre-existing conditions- it just hit hard and fast. Then my wife, Brooks, battled breast cancer for the past three years. She’s clear now, but it’s been a hard road. So I started to write my way through the grief- sharing online my struggles walking with God when hard things happen. I wrote about one of the misconceptions concerning grief: that it will always be a burden and a taker. That’s not quite right. Grief actually matures you, helps you value things differently. Grief will speak wisdom into decisions. It becomes a contributor, not just a taker. I picked up gardening as a side hobby to get me through Dad’s passing. There’s something profound about putting seeds in the ground, where things die, then watching new life emerge. I sit in my garden watching roses bloom in places that were barren just weeks before. What a help for grief, a physical reminder death isn’t the end of the story: the Gospel cycle is life, death, burial, and resurrection! Grief is a language nobody wants to learn to speak, but throughout life, most people pick up a word here and there. And whenever you hear somebody speak the language of grief, you connect instantly. I told my kids, watching their mom battle cancer, ‘You will be able to speak some things that your friends won’t be able to for a while, but when they go through something, they’ll know you understand.’ One surprising way God used my words written in the language of grief was through Dignity Restoring Hope, a ministry in Prague that meets needs of refugees in the Czech Republic. I met the founder, Petra, at a Starbucks in Prague back in 2015. (God first planted a burden in my heart for Eastern Europe years earlier, when I was on staff with CRU and one of our ministry partners was in Slovakia.) Amazingly, while I was writing through my own pain, Petra would share my writings with refugees. There was one woman with a horrific story who ended up becoming a believer after reading them! God was taking these writings and allowing them to impact people on the other side of the world.

Earlier this year, Petra asked if I could bring Brooks and our family to Prague. Within hours of being there, Brooks said, ‘With where we’re at right now, we could actually come for a longer period of time.’ That was monumental- the first time in three years she’d talked about the future, because, for the first time, cancer wasn’t in it! I felt like God met our family in so many ways. By this time Dignity was serving primarily Ukrainian refugees who’d fled the fighting with Russia in their own war-torn country. Petra explained what was happening with Ukrainian pastors. One refugee church in Prague has already multiplied six times, filled to capacity each time. These Ukrainian pastors were overwhelmed, she explained- they needed somebody to help care for them. So she asked if we would partner with Dignity to help shepherd them, possibly through training in a retreat-type setting. My response: Why would I not? That’s exactly what we do at Collegiate Abbey, the ministry I lead on the UT campus here in Knoxville. (Our sole focus is faculty, staff, and admin- from professors to janitors.) We’ve developed training called Shepherd’s Abbey to help people lead through hard times and continual change- perfect for serving these Ukrainian pastors. I initially thought we’d be helping 10-15 pastors. But when I called Petra later, I asked how many pastors, and she said ’80.’ I said, ‘Petra, that’s a conference, not a retreat!’ So there’s now this network of over 80 pastors spread across the Czech Republic helping people through severe trauma. Less than 2% of the Czech population identifies as Christian (more identified as Jedi in a recent survey!). But among the 650,000 Ukrainian refugees there, a revival is breaking out- primarily from orphans and widows. We’re spending three weeks in Prague during May, running retreats for those Ukrainian pastors, breaking them into groups of 15 since most are bi-vocational and can’t leave their congregations for long. We’re also teaching first aid to youth and grandmothers who might need these skills if they return to Ukraine. And we’re putting in a garden at the Dignity refugee center with a trauma-themed prayer walk.

Sometimes I just sit back in amazement and sort of ask, ‘How did helping others through trauma become my life?’ But it’s rhetorical- I know the answer. One night, driving home from the hospital after one of Brooks’s surgeries, God put this phrase in my head: ‘Shepherd of the Sorrowful.’ I thought, ‘I don’t want to be that. That’s a title I would never want.’ Yet I found myself writing firsthand about pain from waiting rooms once again. I thought, ‘God has me here, and I want to be willing for Him to use it as He wants.’ I mean, I never would have picked this- cancer is horrible. One of the hardest parts about dealing with cancer is how much it tries to steal from the ones you love. It tries to rob them of their identity. It attacks not just their physical health, but their emotional and mental health as well. Watching the amazing spouse the Lord has given you suffer at such an intense level breaks you down. Cancer is devastating. But we also saw the goodness of God, and more than just a glimpse. When Brooks was diagnosed, her tumor’s growth rate was 85% (typical ‘aggressive’ is 15-20%). But after chemo, the tumor just disappeared! The doctors said, ‘We’ve never seen it go this way.’ She went on an experimental drug that cost $13,000 a month, but through the hospital’s social worker, the company gave it to us for free. For two years, we’d get the drug package every month. It was really God saying, ‘I’m still here, still providing.’ Now we’re praising Him for Brooks’s healing. But you don’t go on vacation after a tsunami hits. You stabilize the critical areas and start cleanup. Nothing’s left untouched- mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, financial; every area has water damage. That includes our three children, who went through this three-year process, too. We noticed they’d even made some unhealthy connections- like when grandparents would visit, Mommy would get sick. So we had to start creating new patterns to show them there’s a normal side of life, too. You need to celebrate, to dance in the rubble, to laugh amongst the broken, to hug with the bruises- and our family is doing all of that with everything we have.

A botanist once told me something profound about seasons: Many view winter as a season of death, but it’s actually a season of internal growth. When the ground thaws and sun warms the earth, the buds swell and the growth that happened amidst the harsh cold comes bursting forth. I’ve traveled through winter. There have been harsh winds of doubt, the frigid cold of loneliness. We don’t transition from hard times in a moment- the ground of our heart starts to recover from trauma and pain slowly. There’s fear as you hear the ice crack in the rivers as they start to flow- you aren’t sure what to expect. You emerge from winter like a newborn colt, senses overwhelmed, legs shaky. In an odd way, you’ve grown used to winter. It brings comfort, acts as a shield. A frozen heart isn’t always bad; God allows it to help us deal with overwhelming emotions during seasons of hurt and loss. We emerge with hesitancy. You fear that entering a new season betrays something of the ones prior. You fear forgetting- and never want to forget someone. Then, as your heart thaws, you begin to feel again. Our family is perceiving God’s warmth anew as we pour into those with trauma- from Knoxville to the Czech Republic. I’m not the most book-heavy theological person, but God has given me the ability to paint with brushes (professionally, I teach people how to paint with watercolors) and also with words. People tell me, ‘You put into words what I wanted to say the whole time.’ So while I may not be much help in drawing truths from great theological treatises, I can probably explain how a tree could teach you about Jesus. Several years ago, I visited Auschwitz, and one thing that impacted me was little yellow flowers blooming everywhere. It seemed almost inappropriate that in a place of such tragedy, something beautiful would dare bloom. Yet they did- signals of God’s creative beauty and love, even amidst the heartache. There is beauty and hope in, and on the other side of, our deepest grief. Because this is still our Father’s world. Because He uses sorrow to clarify & correct how we value His gifts. And because He endlessly delights in reminding us that death is not the end.”