Gerald Sittser has written one of the best treatments on how to respond to any significant loss that happens in life. He is clear to point out that living brings with it suffering. Life includes both sorrow and joy, pain and pleasure. A person must learn to live with both. How we respond to the our pain is a choice that we must make. He carefully and gracefully reveals how a person can embrace the pain and grow from the experience regardless of how tragic the event. As we embrace the pain and learn to live with whatever has brought the pain by the grace of God, we will become whole people once again.

A Grace Disguised is a true story about enormous loss, how one man is grappling with it and the wisdom he has gained through it.

While driving with his family on a dark road one night in North Dakota, the author and his family were in a head-on collision with a drunk driver. Gerald Sittser stood by elplessly as he watched his mother, his wife and his four-year-old daughter die. At the same time his two-year-old son was seriously injured, and his other two daughers were coping with the shock of what had happened.

Sittster eloquently and openly shares his enormous loss as well as his journey and growth through the overwhelming devastation of his life.

An associate professor of religion at Whittier College in Spokane, Washington, Sittser brings his Biblical world view to what happened to him and his family. A Grace Disguised -- How to Grow the Soul Through Loss -- opens up many eternal mysteries about suffering. A must read for ANY and EVERYone.

Since loosing my daughter,husband,mother and unborn grandchild within an 11 month period I have been searching for answers of so many questions. While this author didn't always have the answers, it was a great comfort to me to see that he had most of those same questions, and was trying to work through them from a Christian perpective. At no time did he try to minimise the pain, but yet was able to experience even some joy, and to come to a peace, and strength to carry on and not stay enbittered for the rest of his life.He went through all this before me so this gives me hope to come through it with a stronger reliance on the grace of God, regardless of the terrible events that happened.It helps to know that someone has survived and grown stronger. Thank you for a wonderful book that gives help and hope.

This book helped me so much. It made me not feel like am the only person to lose a parent. Lauren writes honestly and openly, and the book is filled with helpful ideas to help those grieving. I wish I had had this book before my loss. It would have helped me a lot, and it would have helped my parents too. I recommend this book to EVERYONE! It is a wonderful gift to give to anyone who is facing the loss of a loved one!

Everyone has faced the death of a loved one. This story of a young girl's (11 years old) journey after the death of her father to cancer is uplifting, inspiring, practical, and encouraging. She tells her story, and then gently guides the reader to reflect on "their story" and to live their life in a way that honors their loved one. Although written to help children (specifically) with grief,I can think of dozens of adults I know that need to read her wisdom! She writes, "I am Daddy's legacy. This means that I am a part of him that lives on. Daddy was very courageous. If I live my life in a way that honors him, then he lives on in honor. Daddy wouldn't want me to become bitter and withdrawn over his death. He wanted me to have a good and happy life when he was alive, and he wouldn't want that to change now. So even though my life has changed, the values that Daddy taught me haven't. Daddy's death was a tragedy. But, it doesn't mean that my life is over. His life inspired me. His determination inspired me. I am so proud that he is my father." This book lifts the spirit. It is a treasure!

This book is an excellent Christian-centered perspective from a young girl about the death of her father.

Her life changes since her father's death are felt through her upfront and frank discussions about how a young child can cope and what helps and what doesn't. An excellent book for children or parents of children who have had a parent or close friend die.

This book literally helped me make through many an evening after the death of a loved one. James Millers approach to comparing the seasons to grieving was so accurate. As your going through the Autumn of Grief you wonder if you will make it through to the Summer. You do, and this precious book will help to bring you to that bright Summer. The quotations written from other writers are placed strategically throughout the book and address the particular emotions being felt so beautifully. The emotions of grief can be very intense. This book helps you realize that you are not alone in your feelings, that they are normal. I have kept the original copy given to me; and have purchased several for others who have faced Grief. I can't recommend this book enough. It will be a tremendous assist as you go through this terribly LONELY time.

After the death of my husband, I was given this most excellent book. James Miller's experience as a Grief Counselor and Clergyman came through beautifully. I read and re-read the consoling pages. I cried grieving tears with the assurance that someone knew the depths of the tears and the groanings. Each season of grief is beautifully broken down. The book begins in Autumn and walks with you day by day until finally you have arrived at the summer of your grief.
Throughout the entire book, there are quotations from various writers that just seemed to express the turmoil of mind and emotions that grief causes.
I have given this book to many who have lost someone dear to them.
I know it will help so many work through Grief.

In a time of grief when so many books are so harsh this is a very soft, feel good book that makes you reflect on the good that is still in your life. It does not focus on what you "should" be doing or feeling, but rather gives you permission to grieve and to also move forward.

The book is my salvation.. It contains words I need to hear to survive a great loss. The Pinks know the greif of a great loss and knows how to put it into words of comfort and hope. It gets me through each day of my greiving. It helps you spertully also.

"GRACE FOR GRIEF" consists of brief, daily meditations for Christians who have suffered a loss. Each day's reading consists of a short Scripture passage and a very brief prayer. I have used this book for the last 9 months and found that the authors spoke to my heart in their thoughtful, gentle selections. They understand the up-and-down passage of the grieving process. Special selections are included for anniversaries and holidays. I appreciate the brievity of each day's selection which contains one thought I can focus on for that day.

Yes, I am a biased reader. The author, Carolyn Rhea, is my mother, and this book is about the unexpected death of my father. On September 19, 1990, my father had a massive heart attack at the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris - just months before my wedding. Through poetic prose, my mother gives others an insight into the grief process and provides comfort through scriptures. How sadly ironic that at the same time this book was published, my mother was diagnosed with a terminal illness. However, she maintains her grace, dignity and unquenchable faith that God is ever present and can work through any situation. I continue to pray for a miracle. Meanwhile, I hope you find comfort through her book. She truly wants to reach out to others who are also journeying through grief.

Yes, I am a biased reader. My mother, Carolyn Rhea, wrote this very special book about my father's death. On September 19, 1990, he unexpectedly died of a heart attack at the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. He died a few months before my wedding. They were such a close couple, and I truly feel blessed to have them as parents. Through her poetic prose, my mother expresses her conversations and confrontations with God. You will journey along with her through the "wilderness of grief" and understand more about the grief process. How sadly ironic that just as this special book was released, my mother was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Yet, she maintains her grace, dignity and unquenching faith that God is ever present and can work through any circumstance. I continue to pray for a miracle. Enjoy the book!

As an estate planning attorney, I encourage people to think beyond their legal documents when considering their death. I'm so impressed with how this book helps them think positively through their choices concerning their death that I'm giving a copy of the book to each of my clients. Thanks Ms. Jenkins!

An outstanding guide to preparing for your death. A blend of emotional, spiritual and financial topics and approaches. Outlines how to plan ahead, and reduce the burden on your family. Wonderful anecdotes from the author's experiences make many of the points.

In my search for material to help those dying of lymphoma, I found many books for caregivers, for the bereaved, and for therapists who aid the dying, but only a few books that speak directly to the dying person. Weenolsen's book fills the gap.

The Art of Dying offers much information, including very practical information, for dealing with the end of life--information not present in many other books, most of which focus primarily on the spirituality of dying, and communicating with loved ones before you die. Although these are terribly important issues, practical advice about arranging finances, preparing advance directives to ensure for or against extraordinary resuscitation efforts, and learning what to expect in the last few moments of life are questions that have been addressed in few other books.

In particular, I appreciate Weenolsen's very pragmatic list of things not to say to children. For instance, she recommends you not say you're "just going to sleep," lest they develop a subsequent fear of sleeping.

If you're facing death soon, or if you believe that one ought to prepare to die at any time, this book will serve you well.

Dr. Christ's new book is an invaluable resource for mental health professionals working with bereaved children and adolescents. I am developing a program of bereavement support groups for school-age children at a large urban mental health clinic. There is no book in my personal library that I have turned to more than Dr. Christ's HEALING CHILDREN'S GRIEF. It offers a rare and insightful window into the minds of bereaved children from age 3 to 17. This broad age range is divided into three-year age clusters (e.g. 3 to 5, 6 to 8, 9 to 11, etc.), and the subtle yet clinically critical differences in each age group's grief experience and symtoms are clearly described. The narratives that Dr. Christ shares from her work with these children are at once touching, compelling, and profoundly informative. Simply put, this book will equip you with age-specific interventions for bereaved children and adolescents, and is a must-read for professionals preparing to undertake this important work.

Licensed mental health counselor Deborah Kalinyak reveals a path to emotional healing, mental wellness, and spiritual grace in the pages of Hope For A Wounded Heart: Healing Your Emotional Wounds Through Peaceful Living And Spiritual Grace. This is primarily Kalinyak's personal story of how she grew from grief to peace when experiencing an untimely death, saturated with grief and suffering, and dropping her into a depression that only God could lift her from. Hope For A Wounded Heart is enhanced for the reader with "Mental Health and Spiritual Thoughts" sections in each chapter, along with easy exercises which will enable readers to overcome the obstacles within their own lives. A strongly recommended title for anyone suffering from life's many shocks and losses, Hope For A Wounded Heart is as practical, useful, and accessible as it is inspiring, encouraging, healing and transforming.

I found Kathleen Singh's The Grace in Dying difficult to read. Not because it's a profound book, nor because the writing is difficult, but because it consists of a well-intentioned attempt to merge some genuine and compassionate insights regarding death and dying with an almost incoherent type of pop-psychology. Consider the following: "We will find that the anger of our mental egos, as we confront our own death, is well laced with fear....Anger is a highly emotional phase in the dying process. The mental ego, typically, is still operating at the level of persona: the levels of Belief, Social Contract, and Ego Saint in the Sufi cartography. In these levels of consciousness, the mental ego is still unable to own its shadow parts. It sees the momentum of the process of dying as emanating from other than the self." (p.186). Her typical juggling of constructed categories (interspersed with comforting platitudes) does very little, in my humble opinion, to help us understand the psychological and spiritual dimensions of death. This does not mean that Singh's book isn't valuable; it simply means that she has an agenda and an ideology, and I, for one, would prefer to be free of both, when I die.

Yes, people are transformed as they die, and no, Singh has not addressed the open-ended and indeterminate nature of that process. She has instead placed the process of dying into a construction of her own, and that ideology, rather than genuine insight, is what characterizes this book. Those interested in the subject of death might benefit more from Kubler-Ross's Death: The Final Stage of Growth and others, and Stephen Levine's poorly-written but thematically consistent (and brilliant) Who Dies, and other similar books. Any reader familiar with the books Singh considers primary will see how unfortunate it is that Singh did not concentrate on what she has learned from her hands-on work with the dying, rather than on what she clearly doesn't know about psychology and religion.

Unless you believe that when we die, we cease to exist(period, end of life), and whether or not you work with the terminally ill, this book is a must read. This book does not tell us other people's stories, nor is it for those who are dying, or dealing with the immediate death of a loved one. It is for the rest of us. Be advised - this is not an easy read - my copy of the book, which took 5 times longer to read than my usual reading choice - is riddled with scribbled comments, question-marks, exclamation points, and words circled and underlined. Let me also add, this is not my style. I'm a lazy reader.

This is a well-written course in the evolution and retrogression of our individual lives, for (deny it though we might), you and I are going to die. The questions that worry us most are most probably "when" and "how." Singh cannot answer the former, but this book will help with parts of the latter.

Much of what Singh tells us is based on experiences of those who have worked with those who are terminally ill, in addition to her own observations. Whether we believe in Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, a Higher Power, Nature, Singh maintains that the point of dying is to return us to the place from which we came.

She reminds us that we come into the world thinking we are the center of the Universe. Perhaps we were right, for it may be that at birth we are as close to the Creator as we will get, until death takes us back. She describes how we spend our youth and young adult life developing, then defending our sense of self. We live, often most pleasantly, in constant denial of our own mortality, a truth that seems too bleak to accept.

In the latter part of life, we may hold tightly to our ego, but our body begins to betray us. If we are slowly dying of cancer, AIDS, or the illnesses of old age, we can grow into acceptance of the insulting truth that our ego is not the true "us." One dying woman described it as having an "ego-ectomy.

Singh presents us with additional stages of dying, expanding on Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' denial; anger; bargaining; depression; acceptance. Kubler-Ross' stages dealt with the affects on the ego, or mind; medical science gives us physical stages. Singh offers the theory that we go through necessary spiritual stages before dying, whether or not we have been looking for spiritual transformation. Dying offers us a crash course, the equivalent of a spiritual shotgun wedding.

When we are stripped of everything we thought made us unique, a universal specialness is revealed. Regardless of when it happens - years, months or seconds from our death - we will come to realize the unimportance of what was once important. And despite ourselves we will stumble upon our own unity with that Force we call many things - God, Universe, Light.

I feel more convinced than ever that death is not a negative, dark force I must flail against, but the other side of living, a door I must go through. That I'll figure it out at the end doesn't encourage me to stop seeking now - perhaps my exit/entrance will go better if I stop running from my fear of death, and truly live my life. This book is an excellent start in learning now how to make our own living fuller, so we will be closer to home when we die.

I found "The Grace in Dying" to be an invaluable book that will assist me in my volunteer work with hospice patients--and also in my own life. It is a masterpiece of knowledge and wisdom that can open our awareness to the magnificent potential for growth that lies buried within each of us. It helps us to discover who we really are--we are Spirit. "The Grace in Dying" is so timely, so important, and so needed in our Western world. It will ease our fear of death and help us to integrate death and dying in our daily lives. While never for a second making us believe that dying or living with a terminal illness is easy, it allows us to find the beauty, and some peace, in the process.

"The Grace in Dying" illuminates the the great transformation that takes place at the time of death--and how we also might find the way, through contemplative and spiritual practices, to this wonderful transformation amidst the living of our lives.