This is one of the first books I read about grief after you died. Aunt Jane sent it to me. It was referenced to in a grief series I just completed by Rick and Kay Warren, so I decided to read it again. I didn't take notes the first time but I will now. The author lost his daughter, his wife and mother in a car accident when a drunk driver hit the family vehicle.
Reader Responses
"I chased the sun and found no strength until I turned and faced the darkness."
"Thank you...for writing your...book that tries to make some sense out of the sudden, irrevocable, and senseless loss that we, and countless others, have had and/or will have in the unknown future. Your book ultimately holds out hope and the possibility of recovery for all people suffering terrible, sudden and unforeseen loss of loved ones during our mortal lives here on earth..."
Preface
His kids were his project and his redemption at the same time
It is not experience of loss that becomes the defining moment of our lives, it is how we respond to the loss that matters
Response involves the choices we make, the grace we receive and the transformation we experience
Nothing can erase the badness or excuse the wrong done of the loss
Chapter 1 The End and the Beginning
You know as well as I there's more...There's always one more scene no matter. -Archibald McLeish
On night of tragedy, he was given a window of time between the accident and the arrival at the hospital-he was lifted momentarily out of space and time as he knew it and was suspended somehow between the two worlds
(This reminds me of when we were waiting for the police to come and pick us up. I calmly finished getting dressed, there was time for Hope and Carter to get dressed-just waiting to see what awaited us)
The two worlds-one of the past and the other his future as an unknown
There was no way out-when he arrived at the hospital, he stepped into a whole new world
Chapter 2 Whose Loss Is Worse?
In the last resort it is highly improbable that there could ever be a therapy which gets rid of all difficulties. Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health. -Carl Jung
Life is a constant succession of gains and losses
Different kind of loss-like an amputation
-results are permanent, impact incalculable, consequences cumulative
We tend to quantify and compare suffering and loss
Loss is loss, whatever the circumstances. All losses are bad in different ways.
Compare to long term-illness, divorce, caring for a disabled loved one
No good in quantifying loss, only what meaning can be gained and how can we grow through our suffering?
Chapter 3 Darkness Closes In
Die before you die. There is no chance after. -C.S. Lewis
Sudden and tragic loss leads to terrible darkness
His sister Diane told him that the quickest way for anyone to reach the sun and light of day is not to run west, chasing after the setting sun, but to head east, plunging into the darkness until one comes to the sunrise.
Chose to turn toward the pain and to yield to the loss
Groans that words cannot express
It is not what happens to us that matters as much as what happens in us
Life in the darkness
Choice is the key
Learn to live with sorrow
Transcend our circumstances
Loss can also make us more
Discover the world within
Integrate the sorrow into your life
Chapter 4 The Silent Scream of Pain
One learns of the pain of others by suffering one's own pain, my father would say, by turning inside oneself, by finding one's own soul. And it is important to know of pain, he said. -Chaim Potok
Pain is a gift because it shows we have a capacity to feel
"The pain of loss is severe because the pleasure of life is so great; it demonstrates the supreme value of what is lost."
Denial, bargaining, binges and anger are just attempts to deflect the pain
At core of loss is the frightening truth of our mortality
Chapter 5 Sailing on a Sea of Nothingness
Maybe the most sacred function of memory is just that: to render the distinction between past, present, and future ultimately meaningless; to enable us at some level of our being to inhabit that same eternity which is said that God himself inhabits. -Frederick Buechner
"Those who suffer loss live suspended between a past for which they long and a future for which they hope."
"I cannot live with the memories, and I cannot live without them."
"The problem with those who have suffered loss is that they are deprived of the familiar material from the present in order to envision the future."
"I remembered a past that included people I did not want to give up, and I imagined a future that excluded people I desperately wanted to keep."
"Catastrophic loss by definition precludes recovery. It will transform us or destroy us, but it will never leave us the same."
Stripping life down to what matters, take inventory of our lives, can make us more alive to the present moment
Transcendence-makes our tragedies look smaller and open us to the possibility that life is more than tragedy and that there is also grace, which is given in the miracle of the present moment
"Gifts of grace come to all of us. But we must be ready to see and willing to receive these gifts. It will require a kind of sacrifice, the sacrifice of believing that, however painful our losses, life can still be good--good in a different way than before, but nevertheless good. I will never recover from my loss and I will never get over missing the ones I lost....Moreover, I will always want the ones I lost back again. I long for them with all my soul. But I still celebrate the life I have found because they are gone. I have lost, but I have also gained. I lost the world I loved, but I gained a deeper awareness of grace. That grace has enabled me to clarify my purpose in life and rediscover the wonder of the present moment."
Chapter 6 The Amputation of the Familiar Self
Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
and before myself a contemptible woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army
fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine! -Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Like amputation of the self from the self
Confusion of identity
Phantom pains
"Loss creates a new set of circumstances in which we must live."
Many people lower expectations of what they will get out of life after a loss, but just have to change the focus
Chapter 7 A Sudden Halt to Business As Usual
Even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength for the journey that still lies ahead. -Frederick Buechner
Loss turns life into a snapshot
"Regret keeps the wounds of loss from healing, putting us in a perpetual state of guilt."
Their death has forced me to grow, I wish the lost loved one could benefit from the growth that has resulted from their death
"Second death"-destruction of the soul, can be worse than the first tragedy
Death of the spirit-we must decide whether or no to allow these destructive emotions to conquer us
"But grace will bring good out of a bad situation; it will take an evil and somehow turn it into something that results in good."
All I could do was let God love me
Chapter 8 The Terror of Randomness
Affliction is anonymous...it deprives its victims of their personality and makes them into things. It is indifferent; and it is the coldness of this indifference--a metallic coldness--that freezes all those it touches right to the depths of their souls. They will never find warmth again. They will never believe any more that they are anyone. -Simone Weil
disorderliness of tragedy-wrong place at wrong time
order does not always prevail
loss makes the universe seem like a cold and unfriendly place
"Randomness mandates that we simply live as best as we can, but in the end we must realize that what happens is often arbitrary."
one of worst aspects of his experience of loss has been sense of sheer randomness
wondered if family had been cursed
WHY?
"Suffering may be at its fiercest when it is random, for we are then stripped of even the cold comfort that comes when events, however cruel, occur for a reason."
life in this world is an accident waiting to happen, and there is not much we can do about it
learn to live in hope, life is still worth living
stories of Job and Joseph
(My note: my new favorite word is "transcendence"!)
story of Job different when standing inside it
-power of Job's freedom to decide how to respond to suffering
-Job beheld God's unfathomable greatness in his immediate experience
"Job learned that behind the apparent randomness of life is the existence of God, whose greatness transcended Job but did not nullify the importance of Job's choices."
Two story lines of Joseph-one is the story itself, other is God's transcendent purpose of making Joseph's personal story a part of a much bigger story
"As it turns out, however, his life does not consist of a succession of isolated events randomnly strung together but rather of a story with a purpose that he does not see and will never entirely understand."
helps us to see that our own tragedies can be a very bad chapter in a very good book
"The terror of randomness is enveloped by the mysterious purposes of God."
Choose to believe that there is a bigger picture and that my loss is part of some wonderful story authored by God himself
"Loss may appear to be random, but that does not mean it is. It may fit into a scheme that surpasses even what our imaginations dare to think."
Chapter 9 Why Not Me?
Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil; but to good. It is your soul I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God!
-Victor Hugo (from Les Mis)
No one is safe, because the universe is hardly a safe place
Loss deprives us of control
Why me, but why not me?
Can I expect to live an entire lifetime free of disappointment and suffering?
What did we do to deserve loved one in first place?
Grace is as undeserved as tragedy
Wouldn't want to live in a perfectly fair world without any grace
I desperately need and desire the grace of God
Chapter 10 Forgive and Remember
And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on God's. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself. -Corrie ten Boom
"Tragic and catastrophic loss is often the result of wrongdoing."
-because other people commit acts of betrayal, unfaithfulness, or brutality
-because someone blunders
-because someone plots to do evil and cares nothing about the consequences
Desire for revenge-unforgiving heart
Forgiveness brings freedom
Chapter 11 The Absence of God
It is said of God that no one can behold his face and live. I always thought this meant that no one could see his splendor and live. A friend said perhaps it means that no one could see his sorrow and live. Or perhaps his sorrow is his splendor. -Nicholas Wolterstorff
how to reconcile God's sovereignty with human suffering
theodicy: humanity's attempt to reconcile the apparent contradiction between the experience of suffering and the existence of a good and powerful God
-either God is powerful but not good, or good but not powerful
suffering raises emotional questions about God
God is the only foundation on which to build my broken life
Where do we get idea of good and bad anyway-from God
Three perspectives:
(1) Alternative way of understanding God's sovereignty
-we aren't puppets
-includes, rather than nullifies human freedom
-his sovereignty encompasses all of life, not just tragic experiences but our response to them, i.e.
-transcends human freedom but does not nullify it
(2) Relationship between God's sovereignty and the Incarnation
-sovereign God came in Jesus Christ to suffer with us and to suffer for us
-His sovereignty did not protect him from loss
-God understands suffering because God suffered
(3) Role of faith
-we have a choice to believe
-real love is not forced
Dream the author had: "...,I saw the accident in a new light. I was standing in a field with my three children, near the scene of the accident. The four of us were watching our minivan as it rounded that same curve. An oncoming car jumped its lane, just as it had in the accident, and collided with our van. We witnessed the violence, the pandemonium, and the death, just as we had experienced it in real life. Suddenly a beautiful light enveloped the scene. It illuminated everything. The light forced us to see in even greater detail the destruction of the accident. But it also enabled us to see the presence of God in that place. I knew in that moment that God was there at the accident. God was there to welcome our loved ones into heaven. God was there to comfort us. God was there to send those of us who survived in a new direction."
God's sovereignty is a blessing and not a curse
Chapter 12 Life Has the Final Word
The edges of life are tragedy. The depths of God are joy, beauty, resurrection, life. Resurrection answers crucifixion; life answers death. -Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki
the real enemy we face-the last great enemy-is death
"We are deceived by our longings for what we once had, because we cannot have it that way forever, even if we regain what was lost for a while."
a miracle is only a temporary solution
"Death does not have the final word; life does."
"All tears and pain and sorrow will be swallowed up in everlasting life and pure, inextinguishable joy."
Chapter 13 A Community of Brokenness
I did not weep for the six million Jews or the two million Poles or the one million Serbs or the five million Russians--I was unprepared to weep for all humanity--but I did weep for these others who in one way or another had become dear to me." -William Styron
suffering loss is a solitary experience-different for everyone
also a common experience
doesn't happen automatically-have to reach out
mutuality
have to choose to love again-the greater loss is refusing to love again
Chapter 14 The Cloud of Witnesses
Galaxies revolve and dinosaurs breed and rain falls and people fall in love and uncles smoke cheap cigars and people lose their jobs and we all die--all for our good, the finished product, God's work of art, the kingdom of heaven. There's nothing outside heaven except hell. Earth is not outside heaven; it is heaven's workshop,heaven's womb." -Peter Kreeft
some of those who have gone to the grave before us
requiem-mass for the dead
"Now life will be a little less sweet, death a little less bitter."
other Christians who have faced horrible circumstances yet who have endured and prevailed
they bear witness that pain and death do not have the final word-God does
heaven is our real home
Chapter 15 Heritage in a Graveyard
History is one tapestry. No eye can venture to compass more than an hand's-breadth...There is no happiness equal to that of being aware that one has a part in a design. -Thornton Wilder
have to live out stories we do not choose
all the good in the world will never make the accident itself good
power of God's grace and my need for it
Epilogue
Common question: Will my life ever be good again?
It won't be the same as it was before--but by God's grace it can be good again
have to let old definition of the good life die first without having enough information and certainty to form a new definition
-changed inwardly
-experience of being a father/mother
-discovery that our lives are part of a bigger story
God Moves in a Mysterious Way by William Cowper
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.
His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.
Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.
"The accident remains now, as it always has been, a horrible experience that did great damage to us and to so many others. It was and will remain a very bad chapter. But the whole of my life is becoming what appears to be a very good book."
Weathered and Beautiful
God wants to use the harsh conditions of life to shape us into something extraordinarily beautiful
Redemption happens through God's involvement in the ordinary circumstances of life
the tragedy itself could actually play a less significant role than what God could do with it or how I would respond to it
"God works redemption, whether life takes a dramatic turn or continues on its usual course. In the end, redemption is about God--who he is and how he works. He is the author, we the characters."
"we become who we already are in Jesus Christ"
"A family, already redeemed through Jesus Christ, experiences redemption as an ongoing story of suffering, grace, and growth."
-Redemption involves a story
-God is the author of the redemptive story, from beginning to end
-The setting and the circumstances in which we live--however desirable or miserable--always play a limited role, and if submitted to God, can actually play a useful role
-The goal of redemption is not immediate happiness as we might define it now, but holiness of life; not the good life as we imagine it on Earth, but the perfection of Heaven itself
everything that happens in this life spills over into that other and greater life, pointing beyond itself to reality as God knows, sees, and experiences it
grace was disguised by the sorrow, pain and mystery of tragedy and suffering (at time of accident)
Now: grace revealed, discovered and experienced, made abundantly evident by the forces that have shaped my story
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