In the early 2000s when I began to research Grace, I came across a book called: A Grace Disguised: How the soul grows
through loss (1996). I was so
touched by the book, I wrote the author, Gerald L. Sittser (presently a
professor of Theology at Whitworth College in Spokane, WA), to express my
appreciation for sharing his story. Sittser’s story involved his wife and four
small children and his mother, named Grace.
As they set out on a weekend journey in the Cascade Mountains some 20-plus
years ago now, they were hit by a drunken driver – at that moment, he lost
three generations of women – “my mother, my wife, and my daughter.” He and his
remaining three children also sustained multiple injuries.
What I remember most from his book was what he called the
“existential darkness” that came upon him when he saw the three open coffins at
the funeral home and how he found himself in a “waking dream” – running after
the setting sun, becoming exhausted, realizing the sun was out of his grasp; looking
back eastward, seeing only a “vast darkness closing in.” When he shared his
dream with others, his sister told
him: “the quickest way for anyone to reach the sun and the light of day is not
to run west, chasing after the setting sun, but to head east, plunging into the
darkness, until one comes to the sunrise.”
Ironically, while I was reading this book, I was also reading
the Bible from cover to cover for the first time. After reading the Book of
Job, I remember thinking to myself I
don’t get it. Within a couple days, as I was reading Sittser’s book, he
explained how two Biblical stories helped him through his ordeal, the story of
Joseph and the story of Job. He fully explained the Book of Job! What a gift of
grace.
Now, fast forward to the present when I learned Gerald
Sittser has since written a number of books, one entitled: A Grace Revealed: How God redeems the story of your life (2012). In
this book, he asks: “How can we trust God is involved in our story when our
circumstances seem to say He isn’t?” He then explains how his family’s story is
brought “full circle, revealing God’s redeeming work in the midst of
circumstances that could easily have destroyed them.” He also shared other life
stories in his book and showed how God redeemed those stories. He invites us to
read this book with our own story in mind.
There are so many poignant moments in his book. Sittser
and his children love the outdoors and he speaks of how they hike in the
Canadian Rockies and note the many pine trees along the way and remark about the
beauty of their stature: “not beautiful like a child’s innocent and delicate
face, but beautiful like the carved and aged face of a lifelong fisherman or
farmer…full of character.” He also spoke of how it was his tradition to find a
new calendar each year with pictures of beauty and nature on them and how this
calendar hung on the pantry door in their kitchen – a place of gathering and a
place where all could keep their plans written together. One picture truly
caught their attention, so they eventually set out to find it along the
California coast – he expressed how the beauty of the actual site was “so much
better” than the picture they so loved. Sittser has recently married, his
children are now grown and married and he has a grandchild and two
stepdaughters. His story is carved deeply with loss and grief, with beauty,
love and grace, A Grace Revealed.
Sittser sees those trees he referred to as symbolizing
what God wants for us. “He wants to use the harsh conditions of life to shape
us – and eventually the whole world – into something extraordinarily beautiful.
Once broken, we become whole again; once selfish and insecure, we become
stately and serene and self-giving….”
