Status Report: July

Amazed: that it is July.  So soon.

Sorted: myself onto Feedly by way of a reader with the impending demise of Google Reader.  It was an 11th hour bid - late at night on 30th June.  And happily it seemed I didn't need to get myself  Chrome to manage it - it was quite happy with Internet Explorer.  (I've got no idea what I'm talking about...tossing about all these techno-terms.  Don't be fooled.)  That said, from where I am sitting right now, it doesn't seem to have disappeared yet, although as Ali said here, maybe it just isn't 1st July in Google-land quite yet.  Shall see what tomorrow brings.

Saw: The Great Gatsby during June.  I went during the middle of the day in the middle of the week - it felt even naughtier than being out on a school night - on my own and armed with a bag of maltesers that I didn't need to share with anyone (not the jumbo sized bag FYI.)  It was an opulent, depressing, visually rich, sad, perfectly executed film.  Magnificent. Luhrmann absolutely nailed it.

Love: love, LOVED a visit from my dear buddy also during June.  She flew in from another part of Australia and stayed with us for a few days, en route to other parts.  So wonderful to share time with her again.  It will be my turn to cross the border to visit her in a year or two.  A most blessed friendship that always picks up where it left off and always, always deepens with each pass.  And it was she who worked out that the apple peeler gadget could slink, adding to the fun of her visit.

Chuffed: with the lovely Ally's lovely collection of teacup pictures.  Looking at these is as good as sitting down with a cup of Early Grey tea and a good book.

Almost: ready for the Holiday Bible Club programme that our church runs for five mornings during the first week of the July holidays for school children.  I had to overcome significant inertia to get my contributions of craft projects for the HBC prepared.  Thank you to those who heard my whinges and prayed.  I'm well on my way now.  And I am especially pleased with the lion puppet and also Gideon's tea light in a jar.  (Deb...that tea light craft idea I sent you has finally risen to the surface.  I knew it would be useful one day.  But wow...it took me ages to find paper doilies in the shops.  And I felt ridiculous asking shop assistants for them.)

Reading: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen.  I thought I knew all of her novels but it seems I am not familiar with this particular one, so it has been great to read an Austen novel cold, as it were, without seeing it through my memories of a film or TV series.  Dear Jane does turn a beautiful phrase.  The question is, will Fanny marry Edmund or Mr Crawford, leaving Edmund to marry Mary Crawford? Or maybe she won't marry at all but become Aunt Norris' companion.  Fifty pages to go...

Enjoyed: the Egyptian exhibition brought out from the British Museum to our local museum. Immensely.  The boys loved the mummies and the canopic jars.  Real canopic jars that would have been used to house some poor distinguished Egyptian's innards.  I loved studying the papyrus documents and writings carved on stone.  It made me ponder the Bible anew - amazing to think that all those pages of the Bible would have been recorded like that, giving me fresh wonderment at the writing and preservation of God's Word.  I tried to pass my wonder onto the boys but it is very hard to compete with canopic jars.

Watching: West Wing all over again and loving it.  And I have to say that the last five or ten minutes of episode ten in series one are probably the best ten minutes of television you'll ever see. 

Continuing: to think about a quote I read on Wendy's blog a while ago from Ted and Joni Eareckson-Tada's book Joni and Ken, an Untold Love Story.  Says Joni, "If I were sitting next to you this very moment . . . wherever you are . . . I know what I would say to you. I would say, 'Oh, please pray for your partner.' Hands down, it beats any how-to marriage manual or nationally renowned couples' conference."

Looking forward: to all your good advice. 

Signing: off for now.  More craft preparation to do.  In front of a West Wing episode.

Guess what?

It turns out my apple peeler, corer and slicer...

doesn't just peel, core and slice.  It makes apple slinkies!

All of a sudden I think I've become a kitchen gadget person. 

Food and fame

Part of the plan for this year was to try a bit harder with the cooking.  One of the things that helped me was a humble recipe magazine found at the checkout in local supermarkets called Recipe+. There were a few issues during the summer months that were especially helpful in overcoming the cooking inertia. 

So helpful that in an idle moment just after school had gone back for the year but before my year got too busy, I banged out an email (not even a letter!) to the editor about how helpful those summer editions had been and happened to mentioned (because I am such a clever cook) that the Thai style pork balls were equally delicious when made with chicken mince if pork mince was nowhere to be found and hey presto!- I notched up my next minute in the series of fifteen minutes of fame.  My email was published in the May edition.

And for my humble efforts I won a prize, which arrived in the mail today. 

There is an apple peeler (which peels, cores and slices), a lemon squeezer, those scissors (five blade scissors for chopping herbs), a cut and carve board (with an angled surface to collect crumbs and liquids) and a garlic zoom (which is a bit like my beloved happy chopper but garlic clove sized). 

Apart from my happy chopper, I'm not that much of a gadget person so I'm not sure what I am going to do with all of these things...but it was fun to win a prize and receive a parcel in the mail!

I think I must be doing OK on the cooking front because in my mother's day card back in May, one of my boys wrote a spontaneous acrostic poem using the letters of my name and for the "D" said "Does good cooking."  And everyone is certainly getting very good at trying new things for dinner in this household.

Have yet to make one of these, as per one of my aims for the year.

 But there is still time.

And I have recently discovered that this recipe for cheat's minestrone soup is even nicer without the pasta.  It takes things even further away from minestrone authenticity...but given it was already straying from the authentic whose to be worried?

And use as much fresh basil as bravery will allow.  The more the better.  Dried basil not so good.

Stephen and the books I've been reading

I find the stories of Pakistan, Afghanistan, North Korea and that unlikely convert are still roaming around my mind.

Last Sunday I covered the two chapters in Acts about Stephen in Sunday School - how and why he was chosen, that magnificent speech and then his persecution and horrible death.  We spent most of the lesson talking about persecution - and what a blessing it is to live here in freedom and safety. 

I could have illustrated the idea of persecution with anecdotes from Afghanistan or North Korea but in the interests of developmental appropriateness I told the story of how a Chinese couple under threat of persecution prayed the Lord's Prayer instead.  These two, they sat together, held hands and prayed the Lord's Prayer in their minds, too scared to even whisper the words in case someone heard them, squeezing one another's hand at the beginning of each new line.  That way they knew they were praying the words of the prayer together.  And we had a go at it ourselves.   

But I am always gripped by the last two verses of Stephen's story.

While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."  Then he fell on his knees and cried out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."  When he had said this, he fell asleep.  And Saul was there, giving approval to his death.
Acts 7:59,60

It is the mark of a life of deeply faithful, prayerful, loving devotion to God that one faces a violent death by praying for the perpetrators of the awful crime.  I find myself continuing to think about how it isn't ours to decide upon the extent of the reach of the gospel.  Stephen didn't.  He prayed that God would forgive those who were so angrily and awfully ending his life.  He was praying for their salvation.

And then there is Saul, standing there, giving his approval to Stephen's death.  No-one would dare go near Saul with the good news of eternal salvation through Jesus Christ for fear of similar treatment.  And yet, Saul's world was turned upside down soon after and then he proceeded to turn the gentile world upside down with the good news of Jesus. 

These verses take my breath away.  They encourage me to keep digging where the ground is hard.  And to keep praying for those doing hard yards in hard places.  It's not our decision.  And with God, all things are possible.

The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor's Journey into Christian Faith by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield has been doing the rounds of the blogs for a while.  It found its way onto my pile of books to read late last year but I have just got to reading it very recently.

Written by an English professor it is, as you would expect, beautifully crafted.  It's an autobiography - Rosaria Champagne Butterfield's journey from successful English literature professor at Syracuse University specialising in Queer Theory and committed lesbian to a pastor’s wife who now spends her days teaching not university students in lecture theatres but her adopted children around her own kitchen table.

I have read quite a few reviews on this book - I was interested to see what other people thought.  There are many positive reviews out there on this one and interestingly, each one picks up on something different.  This books meets different people in different places.

Three things struck a chord for me - all from the first half the book.

The first is the lesson that it is not up to us to decide how far we think the gospel can reach.  The gospel can makes it way into all sorts of tiny nooks and crannies that we would never have imagined to be within its reach.  It's just not our job to decide who we think will respond to the gospel and who we might consider to be a lost cause.  I felt rebuked for times of being judgmental.

The second is that sharing the gospel is not about shiny programmes and polished performances.  In this case it was through quiet conversations around the dinner table over many, many months of calm, kind, patient hospitality, slowly answering questions and never forcing the issue or pushing for a result.  I felt rebuked for my impatience.

But it is the third that most captivated me. 

There are many victorious stories of conversion to Christianity out there, where the new convert is full of joy and zeal and energy.  And it is a great and wonderful thing to be brought into a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, so don't get me wrong. 

But my own conversion was not like that.  The day I became a Christian I went from being the consummate goody-goody to discovering that my life was full of sin.  The day I became a Christian marked the beginning of six weeks of being more depressed than I've ever been in my whole life as I came to realise how much of a goody-goody I wasn't and twelve months of utter exhaustion as I set about rethinking every thought and opinion I held to make sure it lined up with what I newly believed.  I remember crying for someone when I heard they too had become a Christian, knowing that they were now heading into a hard time of re-evaluating everything and appreciating their own sinfulness.  Becoming a Christian turned my whole world upside down.  Now I am glad for it - for having my world turned upside down and for the things I learned during that time - but at the time it did not seem an easy start.

And my experience was nothing compared with Rosaria Champagne Butterfield's start to the Christian life.  She says towards the end of chapter one:

When I became a Christian I had to change everything - my life, my friends, my writing, my teaching, my advising, my clothes, my speech, my thoughts.  I was tenured to a field that I could no longer work in...I was writing a book I could no longer write... 
Page 26

And later on of her conversion, "I lost everything but the dog."  (p. 63)

I don't want to celebrate her pain.  But I was glad to read her honest account.  I suspect that this experience of having one's world turned upside down is more common than our cheery books or blogs would have us believe.  Life is messier than that.

This is good, honest writing.  I didn't agree with everything she had to say - that seems to be a common thread in the reviews I've read as well - and so perhaps that needs to be said by way of warning when sharing this book with others, but none the less, it's a worthwhile, instructive and encouraging read.

A prayer for today

This morning I read the last words of David from 2 Samuel 23.  In the middle of those words is this verse:

Is not my house right with God?
Has he not made with me an everlasting covenant,
arranged and secured in every part?
Will he not bring to fruition my salvation
and grant me my every desire?

Today I am praying that I will deeply and truly know and trust that my life for all eternity is arranged and secured by God in every part and that my every desire will line up with His desires and not be driven by my own selfish heart.

Status report: June

Worked out that my Bible reading plan goes through the Old Testament, Proverbs and the New Testament once but through the Psalms twice in the year.  I became suspicious when I started in on Psalm 119 recently and it was only May...  But I am more than happy to read through the Psalms twice in a year.

Loving reading Psalm 119 bit by bit.  It is wonderful to read it as a whole - so don't be frightened of its 176 verses.  Yes, it lacks the compactness of Psalm 117 but did you know you can read the whole of Psalm 119 out aloud in less than 15 minutes - it's a fine thing to do in a group.  For now I am enjoying reading it at the rate of eight verses a day and dwelling on all the goodness to be found there in.

Started reading Spurgeon's Morning and Evening daily readings.  This was a little volume I HAD TO HAVE a couple of years ago.  I received it for Christmas in 2011 in response to that need and have just started in on it in the last couple of weeks... a-hem...

And it is lovely.  How are these words from the morning reading on 21st May?

"Do not rest, O believer, till thou hast a full assurance of thine interest in Jesus. Let nothing satisfy thee till, by the infallible witness of the Holy Spirit bearing witness with thy spirit, thou art certified that thou art a child of God. Oh, trifle not here; let no 'perhaps' and 'peradventure' and 'if' and 'maybe' satisfy thy soul. Build on eternal verities, and verily build upon them."

"Build upon eternal verities and verily build upon them."  How good is that?

Speaking of being slow on the uptake when it comes to auctioning Christmas presents, determined that June will be the month in which I season the new wok I got last Christmas.  But I think I have decided that I won't worry about a slow cooker. 

Also reading Tim Chester's Unreached: Growing Churches in Working Class and Deprived Areas.  Good reading.

Have four books sitting and waiting to be read after I have finished the Tim Chester book.  But life is going to get busy for a while so it may be time to relax with another Jane Austen novel.  Mansfield Park is next in the line up.

Enjoying remembering and talking about the fantastic holiday we took over the end of April and beginning of May.  That's why I wasn't strictly in situ for last month's status report.  Can you guess where we went?

Delighted that Wendy has joined me in monthly status reports over at her blog Musings.  Wendy does excellent book reviews as well and there is a veritable treasure trove of helpful reviews to be found there.  And I am loving the contributions to the Prompted to Write posts as well.  It is a joy to read how a few of us handle the one topic. 

 

Writing and receiving letters in the mail. It happens in short bursts and it's lovely when it does.  Feeling as though the blogging muse has left me somewhat.  I have about ten posts in various states of draft and none seem to be quite getting over the line at the moment.  I'm sure the blogging muse will return, but I am enjoying the company of the letter writing muse in the meantime.

 

Thankful to God for words and His Word.  Thankful for being able to read, write and communicate in words.  I think often about this quote from Jon Bloom writing at the Desiring God blog.

Lord… You have the words of eternal life. (John 6:68)

Christians are word people. We’re really into words because the Founder of Christianity is the Word (John 1:1). He came to earth to deliver a message in words. Those of us who have believed his words recognize them as the “words of eternal life” (John 6:68). And we seek to speak these words to others so they too can have eternal life. We call these words the gospel.

Christians are also book people. We’re really into books because our Founder left us a book, a collection of the words he determined are most important for us to know and remember.

This means we’re not into books merely because they’re good for us — as in a good book is health food for the brain, though that’s true. We’re into books because words mean the difference between life and death. If books contain the right words, people may live — forever!

Look what came in the mail last week

Thanks so much Jenny.  I can't wait to use them.  As hoped, they are made on handmade paper which is always so nice to write on and the detail in the designs is wonderful.  Head on over to Jenny's blog for details if you would like to buy some as well and support a micro-enterprise venture in Kenya.

Books about hard places # 2

The other book I read regarding life in a hard place recently was Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick.   Now, if we don't know much about what life is really like in Pakistan and Afghanistan, then I think it is safe to say that we know even less about life for the ordinary person in North Korea.

This book has been sitting on my bedside table for about six months.  It came warmly recommended.  But I just couldn't pick it up.  Maybe it was the grey cover that stopped me from opening it.  It looks pretty bleak.  And yet, when I finally got started I couldn't put it down.

On opening to the first page, what piqued my interest immediately was a photo similar to this one right at the beginning of chapter one.  Click on the picture to get a better view.


Photo from here

It is an aerial view by night of North and South Korea and surrounding countries.  Notice all the light patches - cities and towns lit up with night life illuminated by the electric light bulb. 

Then, in the middle of it all, an expanse of blackness nearly as large as England.  It is baffling how a nation of 23 million people can appear as vacant as the oceans.  North Korea is simply blank. 

North Korea faded to black in the early 1990's.  With the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had propped up its old Communist ally with cheap fuel oil, North Korea's creakily inefficient economy collapsed.  Power stations rusted into ruin.  The lights went out.  Hungry people scaled utility poles to pilfer bits of copper wire to swap for food...

North Korea is not an underdeveloped country; it is a country that has fallen out of the developed world.

(From chapter one of Nothing to Envy.)

What happened that a developed country fell into darkness, famine (20% of its population died of starvation during the 1990's) and utter disarray in the space of a few decades? 

Nothing to Envy is an oral history.  It follows the life of six North Koreans.  Some of the six remember life before the current regime took power and know just to keep their mouths shut.  The rest have grown up under the regime with heads so full of propaganda (North Korea is not connected to the Internet and no-one, at least legally, owns a mobile phone) that they believe that they truly have nothing to envy about the outside world, that the North Korean government is looking after them and that all is in hand. 

The book covers fifteen years taking in the death of Kim Il-sung and the rule of his son Kim Jong-il.  Eventually, for these six people, doubt creeps in.  Doubt in time leads to courageous defection and that is how Barbara Demick, an award winning journalist from the Los Angeles Times, comes to meet with them, interview them over many months and corroborate their stories with others in order to weave together a picture of life in this closed country.

It is grim reading.  Not the least because what has happened in North Korea has happened, and is happening, in our lifetime.  But be not put off by that comment or by the bleak cover.  Once I opened this book I could not put it down.  Because for all its bleakness, I was also inspired.  This is courage and tenacity at its absolute best.  Written down beautifully, insightfully and cleanly.  The word that springs to mind is "compelling."

Also, it is good to know about this.  And good to pray.

Books about hard places # 1

I've just finished reading a couple of great books about life in hard places - Pakistan, Afghanistan and North Korea. 

The first one was Shoot Me First by Grant Lock.  Grant and his wife Janna spent 24 years working with a mission organisation close to my heart in Pakistan and Afghanistan.  They came to the task as successful cattle breeders in South Australia but spent their years overseas supporting micro-hydroelectric schemes, teaching English as a second language, overseeing a massive eye-care programme and caring for all who crossed their paths. 

Shoot Me First is masterfully written.  In spots it's laugh out loud funny.  Right in the opening pages Lock describes trying to register his family with the Pakistani government on their arrival.  The man he is dealing with doesn't seem to think Lock is a sufficiently suitable surname.  Too short.  Too pedestrian.

His intense gaze is making me uncomfortable.  I thought I'd articulated it clearly, but I'll try again.  "Lock," I repeat slowly.
He still looks disdainfully puzzled.  Suddenly a light of descriptive genius flashes in my brain.  I rotate my hand as though I'm turning a key.  "Lock!  You know!  Lock, as in door."
His face changes.  He gives a satisfied sigh, as though his lips have just sampled the rich blend of spices in a superior mutton karahi.  "Ah yes, that is a good name, Sahib.  That is to be a very good name."  Under Matthew's watchful gaze he completes the entry with meticulous care.  Then he looks up and addresses me warmly. "Welcome to Pakistan, Mr Lokazindore."

(From chapter two of Shoot Me First.)

But if some parts had me laughing, other parts were read through tears.  These are truly hard places in which to live.  The Locks lived and worked amongst the ordinary people of Pakistan and Afghanistan and it was tough.  Grant and Janna Lock showed amazing, AMAZING compassion, care and love for those in their contact.

Shoot Me First reads like extracts from the journals of their years away.  But it is so much more than a collection of stories from their time overseas.  Through their tales Lock seeks to educate.  What is it really like in these countries that are so torn, stretched and oppressed by political, social and religious tensions, especially for the poor and the outcast?  Grant Lock explains, illustrates, teaches and cuts through all sorts of myths - and as it turns out, we in the west don't always come out as right. It is hard to garner an accurate picture of "normal" life in these countries.  But I am confident to accept Lock's testimony given they spent a of quarter of a century living in amongst and serving the ordinary people of Pakistan and Afghanistan - and I am glad to have a clearer and even handed view of these nations which now enables me to pray better for those I know who currently work there.

A Christian biography?  Well, yes.  But in a very understated way.  There is no doubt that Grant and Janna are people of deep and abiding faith and trust in God.  But throughout the book their faith is mostly implied rather than stated.  I assume they have taken a low key approach for security reasons, given that some of their programmes are still up and running.  But it works for us too, making this a great book to share with friends and neighbours, showing faith in action without going overboard.

This is a wonderful book.  Really wonderful.  So worth a read to learn about life in these hard places and to be inspired and moved by this compassionate and faithful couple.

And here is the Shoot Me First website.

Rules to live by

When I taught year sevens I had three classroom rules.  All three were introduced on the first day of the school year.  

Rule # 1 was issued right at the beginning of the day.  Day one, minute one, every year (apart from my first year of teaching) would go something like this...

"Good morning everyone.  My name is Mrs (insert my surname here) and in this classroom, if you ever think you are going to vomit, there is no need to raise your hand and ask if you can leave the classroom.  You can just run right out the door.  Try to get to the toilet.  Or at least get to somewhere where I won't need to clean the vomit up.  Because if you vomit near me there is every chance I will vomit near you."

It was always a light way to start the school year.  These were the big kids I was talking to and the boys especially seemed to like it.  But I wasn't trying to be all that funny.  It was a classroom rule that was borne out of a Very. Bad. Experience in my first year of teaching involving a sick child and his desk drawer.  Ghastly.

I would introduce rule # 2 a bit later on in the day.  It was more for the boys than the girls and it went like this.

"You will find during this year that you probably need to start wearing deodorant.  And starting from tomorrow you must wear new socks and new undies EVERY day."

Some would look at me aghast.  Why was the need to wear clean underwear such a shock to them?  That's just wrong.  But good for public health purposes to make it right.

Rule # 3 would be introduced at the end of the first day. 

"Be nice to your teacher and be nice to your mummy and all will go well for you."

They would snort and roll their eyes at me for calling their mums "mummy" but eventually they would get used to it.  And they liked it.  It gave them one more year to be small children in a safe place.  And I restated that rule at the end of nearly every school day - hopefully it meant for a good re-entry into family life after a day in the classroom.

 

Turns out these classroom rules transfer into real life.

If you think you are going to vomit, try to be thoughtful of those around you and do it in a courteous manner.
Wear deodorant and clean underwear every day.
Be nice to your teacher (or your boss/those in authority over you/even those with whom you just spend most of the day) and your mummy (or those with whom you share your house) and all will go well for you.

Great rules to live by.  Who would have guessed? 


Status Report: May

Thinking: that April went by far too quickly. 

Reading: some books about missionaries in hard places - Pakistan, Afghanistan and North Korea.  And after that I am thinking it might be time to take a church history book off the shelf.  It has been a few years.  Time to brush up and be amazed at God's kindness and abiding faithfulness with His people all over again.

Drinking: tea.  Real tea.  Went back to it in mid-April.  The decaf version is bland and has become tiresome and boring.

Considering: for the fourth year in a row whether I should buy a slow cooker.

Thankful: for Deb's short but straight to the point post about all how easily we forget all those hours of children being reasonably good and productive members of the family and how readily we LEAP upon the ten minutes of children being "supremely annoying and painful."  Wise (as always, Deb) and perspective altering.

Doing: something pretty amazing as you read this...but I will have to tell you about it another time.  And therefore...

Confessing: that I wrote this slightly ahead of time.  So when I say drinking tea, I mean it in a general sense rather than a specific, as-I-write sense.

Deciding: that despite what I said here about having turned into an extrovert, I think I am still my good old ISFJ self.  I'm a much more confident, outgoing version of my old self but there have been moments in recent months when I have found myself longing to own one of these, even during the long, hot summer.

I first saw this photo on Ali's gorgeous blog last year.  Only the brain of an introvert would lock in that image.

Speaking of: such things, turns out this year is the 70th anniversary of the Myers-Briggs thingo and you can go here to join in the party.  This is me...

From here



Holding on to Hope

I have read all of the anthologies Nancy Guthrie has edited  - on Christmas, Easter, suffering and on dying - more than once and have given away oh so many copies of them all.  These are truly wonderful, wonderful books.  But until recently I hadn't ever read anything written by Nancy Guthrie herself.
 

But now I have. 

 

Nancy Guthrie and her husband lost a baby daughter at six months of age to Zellwegers's Syndrome.  Hope's condition was discovered at birth and the Guthries spent the next six months loving their precious daughter and painfully anticipating her death.  As carriers of this syndrome, the Guthries took surgical steps to prevent them from having further children.  The procedure reversed itself and a couple of years after Hope passed away, Gabriel was born, also with Zellwegers Syndrome.  He passed away one day short of turning six months old.

 

 

Holding on to Hope, based around the book of Job (from the Bible), was written by Nancy Guthrie during the months between Hope's death and Gabriel's birth.  It is a book about suffering and dying, leaning on God and trusting in Him.  Like Jerry Bridges' books, it sits firmly on the foundation of God's sovereignty. 

 

I feel as though I have read, thought, prayed about and written quite a lot about suffering and death in the last few years.  In the western world, where life is so easy, we don't (I generalise here) manage sufffering and grief well.  We are outraged by it.  And at one level this is entirely correct.  Death is appalling.  But we rage in ways that are selfish and godless.  We think these sorts of things just shouldn't happen in this day and age.  So for me, the last few years has been about working through what ought to be a Right response when crisis comes.

 

What makes Holding on to Hope so very good is that it takes the theory of what is biblical in responding to suffering and grief and applies it squarely to a real life situation of horrendous suffering and grief.  There was no fist shaking at God.  Nor, at the other extreme, was there a facade of stoicism.  The grief was real.  I don't doubt that every page of her manuscript was tear stained.  But it was godly grief.  A grief founded in trust and a deeply faithful acceptance that God  had their lives and circumstances sovereignly, lovingly and wisely in hand.

 

This is a book to share with someone in grief.  To help them grieve well.  It concerns a specific situation - the loss of a child - but it will speak to all situations of grief.  This is a book to share with someone for whom life is good - that they might use the peaceful times to prepare for times ahead when suffering will swiftly or eventually come.  This book is inspiring and challenging and tender and gentle.  It's short - I read it over a couple of evenings.  And at least in the copy I have, there is an eight week study that digs deeply into Job and traverses the Bible on the subject of suffering and grief.  I would love to put some time into this at some stage.  And this book is an excellent companion to Nancy Guthrie's anthologies on suffering and death. 

Reading this book will be time well spent.  Reading it and then sharing a copy with someone else will be a gift.