a great book about loss.

I'm currently reading a book called, "A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss," written by Jerry Sittser. The author himself experienced profound loss when his wife, mother, and 4 year old daughter died in a car accident as a result of a drunk driver. I've been given lots of books on loss, but so far this one has been my favorite.

I wanted to share some of the parts that have been important to me over the last few weeks. I will probably share a little here and there as I go through it.

"We do not always have the freedom to choose the roles we must play in life, but we can choose how we are going to play the roles we have been given. Choice is therefore the key. We can run from the darkness, or we can enter into the darkness and face the pain of loss. We can indulge ourselves in self-pity, or we can empathize with others and embrace their pain as our own. We can run away from sorrow and drown it in addictions, or we can learn to live with sorrow...

The soul is elastic, like a balloon. It can grow larger through suffering. Loss can enlarge its capacity for anger, depression, despair, and anger, all natural and legitimate emotions whenever we experience loss. Once enlarged, the soul is also capable of experiencing greater joy, strength, peace, and love. What we consider opposites--east and west, night and light, sorrow and joy, weakness and strength, anger and love, despair and hope, death and life--are no more mutually exclusive than winter and sunlight. The soul has the capacity to experience these opposites, even at the same time...

The darkness lingers for a long time, perhaps for the rest of our earthly lives. Even if we really do overcome our own pain (which is doubtful in my mind), we nevertheless find ourselves more sensitive to the pain of others and more aware of the darkness that envelops the world. The choice to enter the darkness does not ensure we ever completely come out the other side. I am not sure we can or should."

What is drawing me most to this book is how often he talks about eventually living with sorrow and joy simultaneously.  He never once mentions "getting over it." There is something so comforting about not placing those expectations on myself.

"In other words, though I experience death, I also experienced life in ways that I never thought possible before--not after the darkness, as we might suppose, but in the darkness. I did not go through pain and come out on the other side; instead, I lived in it and found within that pain the grace to survive and eventually grow. I did not get over the loss of my loved ones; rather, I absorbed the loss into my life, like soil receives decaying matter, until it became a part of who I am. Sorrow took up permanent residence in my soul and enlarged it."