A Grace Disguised
In an instant, Jerry Sittser lost three generations of his family, his mother, his wife and his daughter, to a drunk driver. The book, A Grace Disguised, is an incredible and honest accounting of what he did with the loss, but equally important, he shares what any of us can do with faced with loss of one kind or another.
Sitter, his wife, Lynda, mother, Grace, and four children had gone to participate in an American Indian Pow-Wow. On the way home, they had only driven a few miles when Sittser noticed car headlights approaching him at a high speed. Sittser slowed down and moved to the side, but it didn’t help. The car was driven by a drunken driver with his pregnant wife, who was also drunk. Driving 85 miles per hour, they hit Sitter’s mini-van head-on. His wife and mother and four-year-old daughter were killed in the accident.
The book deals with the his grief, but more importantly, his approaches the grief that all of us have to bear in one way or another.
For the Tuesday Mornings in September, I will share quotes from the book. September 21, I will be leading a book study at 9:30 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. in the Parlor.
"The experience of loss does not have to be the defining moment of our lives. Instead, the defining moment can be our response to the loss. It is not what happens to us that matters so much as what happens in us."
As Sitter says (19) believe that good comes out of loss, but that doesn’t mean the loss was worth it. So, while we may want people to start finding meaning the suffering, we don’t want to step too far ahead into saying that life is better because of the loss. For example, Sittser lost people he loved and out of that loss, God inspired him to write this book which, perhaps helped thousands with their grief.
Does that mean it was "good" or "right" for his family to die? Does the loss justify the results?
Together in Christ,
Stephen
