Book Review: Hope in the Mourning – A Hope Filled Guide Through Grief, by Scipio

Hope in the Mourning: A Hope Filled Guide Through Grief compiled by Emily Curtis, Carpenter’s Son Publishing, TN 267 pages

When you read “Hope in the Mourning: A Hope Filled Guide Through Grief”, bring your tissues for your tears and your bull horn for your cheers. Emily Curtis has assembled twenty-one stories arranged in twenty-one chapters each of which will drive you to your knees and then carry you into the heavenlies of God’s grace, mercy, and comfort.  If you are struggling with deep personal grief and mourning or know someone who is, “Hope in the Mourning” is for you.

At first sight the book’s cover itself is stunning. Designed by Jon Kaya, its fabric textured white cover and golden gilded pages gives it a majestic expensive feel.  Its richness captures your attention and is merely a hint of the treasures you will find inside.

If you have cried a bucket of endless tears in your grief and then continued to cry out for comfort with red swollen dry tearless eyes, then this book may guide you on your road to recovery.  “Hope in the Mourning” does not have the answer to your “why?” questions but it shows that you are not alone in your pain, and it points you to the one, Jesus, who is the source of all your comfort. Herein are twenty-one stories of deep personal loss but ends in victorious proclamations.

Your grief is truly unique to yourself.  No one has experienced the exact circumstances as you, and perhaps even only a small few come close. Regardless of the uniqueness of your situation, you will see patterns of similarities in these twenty-one stories.

The book’s chapters not only tell you of heroic responses to debilitating grief, but at the end of each of their stories is a section called “Hope and Helps”.  It’s a treasure of practical and spiritual help. It’s a comforting roadmap others may follow in their grief.  Here, the authors share what scriptures, songs, and acts of encouragement and kindness they leaned on to help them through their grief and actually experience the joy of the Lord in their darkest days.

In addition, the authors list things that people should do and/or not do or say in their attempts to comfort someone grieving.  Some well-meaning words can be, though well intended, horribly hurtful. One of Emily Curtis’ friends summed up the best thing you can do to comfort others in grief is, “Sometimes we simply need to sit in the ashes of those who mourn and mourn along side of them. Then when they are ready, offer them a hand up and gently walk beside them.”

As compiler of these stories, Emily Curtis is very talented and sensitive to people’s hurts and able to express it in her poetry.  At end of each story/chapter, Emily includes a personal poem that captures the essence of that person’s trials and God’s closeness.

But I have written enough. Here, in their own words, are a few examples of what several of the authors had to say about their walk with God in their troubling experiences.

John Martin “Through the trauma and uncertainty, the Lord graciously taught us to lament.  To take our sorrow, fear, questions, pain, hope and faith to Him crying out in prayer and pouring out our heart to the Rock of Ages, who is the anchor and refuge for our souls” (after the miraculous survival of their 24-week micro “premie”)

Brighton Lang Hart “I went through many different changes because of this trial.  I still am. But one thing has always remained constant.  I have never doubted the love and faithfulness of my Savior.” (husband killed by drunk driver four weeks after their marriage)

Catherine Bell “…we were given so many opportunities to share the reason for our own hope and peace through the gospel of Jesus Christ.” (mother of healthy four-year-old boy who suddenly died within days of a mystery illness)

Daisey Cox “The Lord gave me the strength to walk out of the hospital with empty arms. (After the loss of her still born baby girl, “Hope”)

John Cox “God took me to the depths of myself to show me the heights of who He is.” (After his wife’s third miscarriage and in the midst of another pregnancy when John was diagnosed with Lymphoma)

Chuck Kirchner “Facing death can be very scary even for a believer.  That is OK. It is God Himself who grants us faith. (lost his wife to breast cancer on their 16^th anniversary)

Stephane Messer “How is it that we say God was kind to us when our son has died? Our instincts as humans is to turn to despair, but when we glorify God you turn things over to him. He gives us a measure of grace every day…” (Oldest college age son fell in a rock-climbing accident but clung to life for a month before he died)

Angelene Korotki “God is working on the process of my internal healing.  Sometimes in this process I still fall into the ocean of disappointment, but God always raises me up again and again. (Spent months in a hospital after an auto accident that left her with TBI, partial paralysis, and many broken bones)

Chantell Dennis “Even though these days were difficult, I look back with thankfulness at how God chose to perfect our faith in this way.”  (husband suffered kidney failure and almost died before getting a kidney transplant)

“Hope in the Mourning” will not take your grief away or even mitigate it, but it will show you the sovereign hand of God in the midst of your worst nightmares and offer a light leading you out of your darkness.

To help others in their grief and mourning, Emily Curtis is giving all profits from” Hope in the Mourning” toward bereavement ministries.