From time to time I come across a book that I want to tell you about because it makes a profound impact on my life and I think it will benefit many of you. I found such a book in God's Healing for Life's Losses: How to Find Hope When You're Hurting. This is a wonderful new book by Dr. Robert Kellemen and it is a book that I have personally been waiting for for a long time.
Anyone who has experienced loss will benefit from reading and working through this gift-sized book. Bob breaks free from the standard Kubler-Ross methodology of grieving and instead takes the reader on a spiritual journey designed to help the hurting soul find healing, rest, and restoration of joy to the heart through chapters such as:
• From Denial to Candor: Blessed Are Those Who Mourn
• From Anger to Complaint: A Lament for Your Loss
• From Bargaining to Crying Out to God: I Surrender All
• From Depression to Comfort: God Comes
• From Regrouping to Waiting: When God Says “Not Yet”
• From Deadening to Wailing: Pregnant with Hope
• From Despairing to Weaving: Spiritual Mathematics
• From Digging Cisterns to Worshipping: Finding God
This book addresses the topic of Christ-like grief in a way I have not seen. It is real and raw and will help the reader to confront his or her thoughts, beliefs and desires in the period of mourning and grieving. It shoves aside the myth that Christians are not to grieve, that we are to "put on a happy face" knowing that we will see our regenerated loved ones again.
I personally worked through the Grief and Growth exercise questions and kept the Journal as part of my healing process in the loss of my beloved Mom. Through this, I realized that much of the emotional upheaval that accompanies grief and sorrow that I experienced was completely normal - even as a Christian!
Dr. Kellemen writes out of the wealth of personal experience, having lost his father, and includes his journey through grief and loss. He assures the reader that there is hope for the future and that this season of sorrow will pass when it is dealt with biblically.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who has suffered the loss of someone they love. I would also suggest that anyone in a discipleship or biblical counseling ministry have several of these on hand to share with those they minister to.
