Sheridan Voysey - Resurrection Year: Turning Broken Dreams Into New Beginnings

Praise for Resurrection Year

Some dreams come true, but others die a painful death. We can learn from both. In Resurrection Year, Sheridan Voysey writes from experiencethere is life after the death of a dream. Your dream may be different, but the road to resurrection will be similar. I highly recommend it.

GARY CHAPMAN, AUTHOR OF THE FIVE LOVE LANGUAGES

This is a gentle, beautiful, deeply touching story of one couple who faced heartbreak but then asked God, What next? The result is a journey proving that, with God, our darkest experiences really can lead to new beginnings. Resurrection Year is a gift that will breathe life and hope into many who have faced a broken dream.

DARLENE ZSCHECH, SINGER, SONGWRITER,

WORSHIP LEADER, HILLSONG CHURCH

Gentleness, refreshment, and vulnerability are the delightful components of this wonderful book. Sheridan uses words and the gaps between words as an artist uses color and space to show rather than tell. We do not need to learn anything from Resurrection Year in order to enjoy it, but that is unlikely to happen. I am confident that it will change our hearts.

ADRIAN PLASS, AUTHOR OF MORE THAN THIRTY BOOKS

INCLUDING THE SCARED DIARY OF ADRIAN PLASS

This story of a crushed dream, a fresh overture, a reversal of roles, and a potent lesson on the emptiness of fame (like chocolate moussedelicious, but merely air) seems sometimes akin to a travelogue. Sheridans account of his and Merryns struggle is helpful to those of us who couldnt have children, but the narrative compels us all to ask crucial questions about our visions and disappointments, our doubts and our prayers, our goals, purposes, and hopes. It is a profound read!

MARVA J. DAWN, THEOLOGIAN, SPEAKER, AND AUTHOR OF JOY IN OUR

WEAKNESS, BEING WELL WHEN WERE ILL, AND MY SOUL WAITS

Resurrection Year is a beautifully written, honest, and engaging book that takes you on an emotional roller coaster through the reality of broken dreams and the wrestling that ensues. I will be buying copies for my friends who are living with dreams that havent become reality.

ANDY FROST, SHARE JESUS INTERNATIONAL

This is a powerful and moving love story of one couple discovering how to love each other and God when their dreams are lost. The honesty and poetry of this memoir make it a compelling read, and will help many to find hope in dark times.

KRISH KANDIAH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CHURCHES IN MISSION,

EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE UK, AND AUTHOR OF HOME FOR GOOD:

MAKING A DIFFERENCE FOR VULNERABLE CHILDREN

Part autobiography, part prayer, and part apologetic, Resurrection Year is a tender and heartwarming book. Sheridan takes us on an intriguing journey through the perplexing maze of life, faith, loss, and hope. I really loved reading this book.

DEB HIRSCH, SPEAKER, COAUTHOR (WITH HUSBAND ALAN) OF

UNTAMED, AND LEAD MINISTER OF TRIBE OF LOS ANGELES

I love Sheridan Voyseys honesty as he addresses the hard questions of faith. He lets us in on his pain to see how God works to stretch and grow him and his wifeand us. Sheridan offers no pat answers in Resurrection Year. His life illustrates the way God strengthens us in the struggle as we hold on to God even with our questions unanswered.

RUTH GRAHAM, AUTHOR OF IN EVERY PEW SITS A BROKEN HEART

This is not only a book for those with broken dreams, but equally a book for those whose dreams have been fulfilled but who still bear the responsibility to bear one anothers burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ. It calls all true followers of Jesus to empathize with those whose dreams are shattered and whose hopes are in limbo. It sounds remarkably like a conversation with Jesus.

REV DR. JOHN SMITH, MISSIOLOGIST, WRITER, PREACHER, AND

FOUNDER OF GODS SQUAD MOTORCYCLE OUTREACH

Through shades of vulnerability and pain, Resurrection Year offers new colors of optimism in this real-life story about hope and possibilities.

JOEL EDWARDS, INTERNATIONAL DIRECTOR, MICAH CHALLENGE

Resurrection Year is a wonderful, honest, moving book about loss, pain, and grief, but also about hope, faith, and above all lovethe love between two people and the love of God. Resurrection Year reminds us all of a profound truth: in order for resurrection to happen, something has to die. This is a book for all who are struggling with loss and waiting in the darkness. There is hope, there is a dawn to come, there is resurrection.

NICK PAGE, AUTHOR OF KINGDOM OF FOOLS AND THE WRONG MESSIAH

Sheridans writing is clean and edgy, sprinkled with the poetry of a heart that hears beyond the superficial to plumb the depths of grace. As he writes, despair and joy spring from the same place as this couple seek a way to live the truths of their faith and their love with authenticity. Our world got so tiny, he writes, our vision got so smallconfined to the walls of our problems. What a powerful thought and one which has the capacity to lift our vision beyond the walls of our circumstances.

BEV MURRILL (MAGL), EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CHRISTIAN GROWTH

INTERNATIONAL; DIRECTOR, CHERISH UGANDA

2013 by Sheridan Voysey

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Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Thomas Nelson, Inc. titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation. 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request

ISBN 978-0-8499-6480-0

Printed in the United States of America

13 14 15 16 17 RRD 5 4 3 2 1

For Adrian and Bridget Plass
who listened to us, listened to God,
and spoke a word in season

Contents

By the time we reach our twenties, most of us have a dream. We want to become someonean actor, an artist, a mother, a sportsman, a builder, a teacher, a priest. We want to achieve somethingperhaps make a movie or release a record, begin a social movement or build a church, compete for our country or start a business, write a book or simply have a happy marriage and family.

Dreams are the precious gift of our imagination. They create worlds that arent yet real. They beckon us toward these worlds to inhabit them. And while there are some broad commonalities, our dreams are uniquely ours. The details of your dreams are not the details of mine. At their best, our dreams reflect our own potentialities.

When we are children, our dreams inspire drawings. When we are teenagers, they keep us awake with excitement. As twenty-somethings, we start shaping our decisions by them, and by our thirties we may have seen some of them spring to life.

Or perhaps have seen some of them die.

You long to be married but are still single. Your artistic career has never taken off. A crushing diagnosis has shattered the dreams you held for your child. The whirlwind romance ended in divorce. As with our dreams, the details of our