I recently picked up
Healing the Heartbreak of Grief by Dr. James Flamming (former pastor at FBC Richmond). Currently I am taking a class on congregational trauma and thought this might be an interesting book to read alongside the course. It is.
Drawing on his personal encounters with grief, which includes the loss of a son, Flamming guides the reader through the stages of grief. Ranging from loss, pain, suffering, the day to day struggle, and finding strength beyond yourself, the most captivating aspect of the book is the shear honesty in it.
At one point the words of a mother who has lost a son to cancer appear saying,
I go to the grocery store, and everything goes on just as if nothing has happened. I want to stand at the door and scream, Don't you know what has happened? My son is gone. His future is gone. His promise is gone. His wife has no husband and his children have no father. Our lives have changed forever, and you go on gathering your groceries as if none of this matters.
All of us at one point or another will feel this way. I remember hearing of the death of a young man that I had ministered to for years. At nineteen, his life was taken by a car accident that most people would have walked away from. I walked around for a week in a daze. Sure, I went to work. I cared for my son. I did my normal activities, but I wanted to scream out to the world, "This Young Man Has Died And We Just Keep Going..."
We did. The next weeks kept going and we continued to do the things necessary to sustain our life. But is that right? It is and Dr. Flamming helps us understand why.
If you or someone close to you has suffered a loss recently, I would recommend this book. It doesn't provide easy answers but it helps us live with our questions.
Labels: Book, God, Grief, Peter James Flamming, Review
