A Grace Disguised: How the soul grows through loss

7+ years ago, my mentor Jerry Root recommended Gerald Sittser's book A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995). This book sat on my bookshelves until my mom died. I grabbed it for the plane flight and started reading it somewhere over the Atlantic on the way to Colorado.

While I've only read half of it, this half has been very helpful. Sittser tragically lost his mother, wife, and 4 year old daughter after a car accident in which his vehicle was hit by a drunk driver. I think he wrote the book 4 years after the accident.

In his preface, he wrote: "It is not, therefore, the experience of loss tha becomes the defining moment of our lives, for that is as inevitable as death, which is the last loss awaiting us all. It is how we respond to loss that matters. That response will largely determine the quality, the direction, and the impact of our lives...The book is intended to show how it is possible to live in and be enlarged by loss, even as we continue to experience it." (pp. 9-10)

In his chapter "Darkness Closes In," he writes: "I had the power to choose the direction my life would head, even if the only choice open to me, at least initially, was either to run from the loss or to face it as best I could. Since I knew that darkness was inevitable and unavoidable, I decided from that point to walk into the darkness rather than try to outrun it, to let my experience of loss take me on a journey wherever it would lead, and to allow myself to be transformed by my suffering rather than to think I could somehow avoid it. I chose to turn toward the pain, however falteringly, and to yield to the loss, though I had no idea at the time what that would mean...I did not get over the loss of my loved ones; rather, I absorbed teh loss into my life, like soil receives decaying matter, until it became a part of who I am. Sorrow took up permanent residence in my soul and enlarged it. I learned gradually that the deeper we plunge into suffering, the deeper we can enter into a new, and different, life--a life no worse than before and sometimes better. A willingness to face the loss and to enter into the darkness is the first step we must take. Like all first steps, it is probably the most difficult and takes the most time...I learned to live and mourn simultaneously." (pp. 33-34, 37, 42)