Pastors recommended the following books as particularly helpful to people who have experienced loss and to Christians who are seeking to minister to them.
• Good Grief by Granger E. Westberg
“I like the next-to-last chapter title, ‘Gradually Hope Comes Through.’ It is the reminder that, eventually, after the dark night of grief, the sun will begin to gradually peek over the horizon, and the sun will come up again in a person’s life,” said Mark Bumpus, pastor of First Baptist Church in San Angelo, Texas. “Life will not be the same—and time does not heal all wounds—but it gradually will be filled with hope and assurance.”
Cover of Sad Isn’t Bad: A Good-Grief Guidebook for Kids Dealing with Loss by Michaelene Mundy.
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• A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis (particularly the edition with a foreword by Christian novelist Madeleine L’Engle)
The theater ministry at First Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, recently completed a three-week run of Shadowlands, a play that tells the story of C.S. Lewis’ marriage to Joy Gresham and her death to cancer. The play sold out every performance, and more than 75 percent of the people who attended were not members of First Baptist Church, Pastor Roger Paynter noted. The dramatic presentation followed an eight-week study Paynter led on the life and teachings of Lewis, with particular attention given to A Grief Observed, which he called “an excellent resource for people who have lost a loved one to an untimely death.”
• Lament for a Son by Nicholas Wolterstorff
Paynter identified it as “one of finest expressions in all of grief literature. … It’s the best thing I’ve ever read regarding the grief of losing a child.”
• Tracks of a Fellow Struggler: Living and Growing Through Grief by John Claypool
“Claypool’s famous set of four sermons preached during his daughter’s battle with leukemia and her subsequent death still speaks with great power,” Paynter said.
• A Decembered Grief: Living with Loss While Others are Celebrating by Harold Ivan Smith
Lynn Turner, associate pastor at First Baptist Church in Richmond, Va., noted her church had ordered copies of the book this year to use with a newly formed grief support group.
Chaplain Mark Grace recommended the following books:
• Praying the Psalms by Walter Brueggemann
• Recovering from Losses in Life by H. Norman Wright
• Sad Isn’t Bad: A Good-Grief Guidebook for Kids Dealing with Loss by Michaelene Mundy
• The Unwanted Gift of Grief by Tim P. VanDuivendyk