Reading, Writing & Pondering

  Grieve Breathe Receive by Steve Carter may just be the best Christian non-fiction book  for me that I have read so far this year. I'll be honest, I ordered this book and then I set it aside I got it. One day I picked it up and I could not put it down for two days until I finished it.  As the title suggests, this book is divided into three sections: Grieve, Breathe and Receive. Carter was at one time a leader at Willow Creek Community Church when he resigned after learning of the senior pastor's abuse. I remember when all of this happened in 2018 as we watched a service to see Bob Goff right about that time. In this book, Carter shares why he had to resign from Willow Creek church and how that decision left him and his family reeling for a long time. This book is about grieving from a variety of losses--loss of a job, loss of friends, health issues, and much more. He also shared that he lost a couple of family members in death not long afterwards too, so it also covers ...

  Losing a loved one is never easy for anyone. In the past month, five people I know have passed away. The last one was the unexpected loss of a classmate. I have to say, I am sad in my heart and soul right now with all of these losses. J. S. Park has a new book out that talks about grieving from a chaplain who has counseled people in all walks of life about all types of deaths. He writes a book with solid practical advice and encouragement as you walk the grieving road ahead of you. In  As Long As You Need by J.S. Park, he offers an honest and unrushed engagement with grief, decoding four types of grieving–spiritual, mental, physical, and relational–and offering compassionate self-care and soul-care along the way. In his nearly decade of service as a chaplain at a major hospital with a designated level one trauma center J.S. understands firsthand how rushing or suppressing grief only adds a suffocating layer of pain on top of the original wound. (From the Back of the b...

  Do you know a child who has lost a loved one and is hurting? Moonlight Memories by Amanda Davis is a beautiful story of grief, loss and healing from a child's perspective.  Piper is grieving and hurting as her mother passed away. Her father gives her a telescope since she has trouble sleeping. She uses the telescope--and she uses her heart and imagination each night as she looks at the stars. Along with the stars, she sees the memories she made with her mother. Grief takes time and doesn't looks the same for everyone, something that the author points out in the page before and after the story. I thought this was a beautiful story of comfort and hope for a young child. I also liked the beautiful illustrations on each page from Michelle Jing Chan. Moonlight Memories would make a great gift for a hurting child who lost a loved one. While they may not want to grieve the same way, I think they would find comfort in knowing that other children grieve too. Also, this book is not ...

  What happens when you are an editor but you've lost your ability to comprehend what you read? Ingrid Erikson is a senior acquisitions editor for a publishing company who has been limping along in her job, struggling to read, after her best friend passes away.  The Words We Lost by Nicole Deese is the story of a grief that is all encompassing until Ingrid returns to the source and is forced to reflect and grow. The Words We Lost kept me turning pages quickly. I have loved everything I have ever read by Nicole Deese. At the same time, this was not a light read. Oh, there were a few light-hearted moments that were well woven in, but for the most part, this started out as a fairly dark melancholy read. Initially that was a bit of a challenge for me but yet the story kept calling to me. The light kept pouring in though the longer I turned the pages. I liked the characters and found myself pulling for both Ingrid and Joel. The back and forth in time to Cece's writing was easy fo...

  Are you grieving or do you know someone who is? A Hole In the World by Amanda Held Opelt may be just the book to read right now. Opelt is the sister of New York Times' bestselling writer, Rachel Held Evans, who passed away in 2019. Opelt also had three miscarriages nad her grandmother passed away shortly before her sister. This writer suffered a big season of loss and she chose to write about it in this book. A Hole In the World is a mix of her personal stories along with some history of the rituals of grief in both our modern world and through the ages from Bible times forward.  The book begins as the author navigates Ash Wednesday after her sister died. She is struggling to understand her own grief process and what it means to grieve well. As she struggles to find those answers, she takes the reader through the rituals of grief through the ages: Keening, Covering Mirrors, Sitting Shivah, Wearing Black, Sympathy Cards and more. I found a lot of this information to be fasc...