Burgess to publish memoir detailing God's faithfulness through the tragic loss of a son

From left: Bill Burgess, Geynell Burgess, Sherri Burgess and Rick Burgess at the 2015 Yellowhammer Power of Service event. (Photo: Grady Thornton)

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Sherri Burgess, wife of nationally syndicated talk radio host Rick Burgess, announced Wednesday she will be releasing a memoir next year detailing God’s faithfulness to their family in the wake of their two-year-old son tragically drowning in the family’s pool. The book will be titled Bronner, the name of their son, who passed away just over seven years ago. New Hope Publishers, a Birmingham-based company focusing on Christian publications, will serve as the book’s publisher.

The original manuscript is already drawing rave reviews from influential authors:

“No one escapes life unscathed. Everyone faces tragedy. Rick and Sherri did,” said New York Times bestselling author Max Lucado. “They did so with faith. We are wise to learn from their example. Their story inspires us to face our challenges by facing God first.”

“‘Thank You, Lord, for trusting me with something so great that I would be asked to give up what You gave up—a son.’ These are the powerful words of Sherri Burgess in Bronner,” added Larry Alex Taunton, author of The Grace Effect. “To a Christian culture saturated with the notion that material and physical well-being are at the center of God’s will for our lives, such words are jarring. It just so happens that they also find resonance in Scripture.”

New Hope Publishers said they are excited to team up with Burgess to make sure this powerful story reaches as many people as possible.

“We’re so honored to partner with Sherri Burgess to publish this amazing testimony of God’s faithfulness through the worst kind of pain,” said Maegan Roper, New Hope Publisher’s marketing director. “We’re humbled to help place this miraculous evidence of God’s goodness and grace into the hands of as many people as we possibly can.”

The Burgesses have frequently discussed the loss of their son and the subsequent grieving process. On the seventh anniversary of Bronner’s death earlier this year, Rick Burgess spent a segment of the Rick & Bubba Show previewing Sherri’s book.

“This is God’s story, it’s not just Bronner’s story,” he said. “If you go back to that day and I could put it in a nutshell, there was a time when a little boy stood next to a pool and the angels of the Lord… could have absolutely stopped him from stepping or falling — or whatever he did — into that pool. And the demons were there, too, and they said, ‘We’re going to kill the boy and these people are going to turn on You. They may never go back on the air again. This show will be over. This platform will be killed. They will curse Your name. They will question everything about You.’ And then the angels looked at God and God said, ‘Let it happen. I’ll be glorified.’ So when I look at what we’re supposed to do, I want to be able to look at him and say, ‘You know what? You were right… And You have been glorified by it.’…So we’ll see what goes next and what the Lord has for us. There’s tons of opportunities this year. It’s time to go back to work.”

The book is scheduled for release in the summer of 2016.