A Grace Disguised

The first book I have completed this fall is A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss by Gerald L Sittser. This book had been recommended to me by several people through out the years, and I had not been able to get to it until now. However, I was glad I had the opprotunity to read it! I will also now highly recommend it to others.

This book was written after Sittser experienced something I think no one should ever have to go through. He lost his Mother, Wife, and 4 year old daughter in a car accident that his entire family was in. Surviving the car accident was himself and his three other children from the ages of 2-9. The book reflects on his journey after the accident.

One of the things that struck me the most was the idea of allowing the darkness to set in during the mourning period. Sittser writes this: "In other words, though I experienced death, I also experienced life in ways that I never thought possible before- not after the darkness, as we might suppose, but in the darkness." The idea of facing darkness strikes me as freeing. I have witnessed myself and several others not allow themselves to be taken to darkness. We try to hurry the grieving process and rush to feeling better, but there are times that is not what needs to happen. We need to take the time to experience the darkness, because God is waiting for us in the darkness.

In a chapter titled "A community of brokenness" Sittser addresses the idea that loss is a universal pain, that can draw people together. As I read this chapter I remembered a moment in my own life in which I lost a friend in a car accident. I knew her from a camp that I had worked at for several summers. The week after her death is one that I will never forget, all of us who knew and loved her flocked camp to be together. The camp overflowed with those who were grieving together, we bound together in community. Sittser writes that community is what keeps people going after losing someone. I completely agree that community is what keeps people sane after a lose of a loved one, however what happens when someone is not surrounded by community? Are there people who are not surrounded by community, and instead of support they feel even more broken? I view this as a challenge, as a community we should embrace those in (and on the fringe) our community when they experience loss. Often we feel uncomfortable around those who are grieving, we feel do not want to deal with their messiness. But really, we are called to be with one another, and to hold each other up in times of grief.

What I gained the most from this book was how to understand both my own grieving process as well as the process of others. As I enter into learning more about pastoral care, I acknowledge that there will be times in my career that I will be with people as they deal with tragedy that has occurred in their live. I also am aware that tragedy could happen in my own. Sittser helped me to understand what the spiritual healing process looks like and how to be present with someone while they struggle. I am thankful for Sittser sharing his story with me, I feel that in a real, raw way he opened himself to the world so that others could be helped.

Overall, I loved this book. It is one that I will read again (in fact it is on my possible book study list). It is also one that I will recommend to others. So, if you have not read it and have some time, do it!