A truly amazing book

I've been reading a little more of this book. It requires taking small bites rather than swallowing great slabs because every paragraph of every page is so full of treasures.

Sittser is in the unenviable position of having lost his wife, mother and daughter in one car accident. A Grace Disguised tells some of his journey of faith through the hard years following his loss. I was moved by the story he tells about moving through his pain.

Immediately following the funeral, Sittser fell into a despairing darkness. At the time he thought he would never emerge from it. A few nights later he had a dream where he was alone on a vast plain. The sun was setting - going further and further west, and he could see that however far he ran, he would never be able to reach the light. He felt that the darkness would swallow him up.

He talked about the dream to his brother, a pastor and poet. For him, it called to mind a poem by John Donne, where west meets east. His sister in law then told him that the quickest way to reach light is apparently not to run west, chasing it, but to run east, into the darkness.

Sittser took a decision to 'run east' and accept and embrace his loss rather than deny it. It didn't make it easier for him to bear it, but it helped him to know that he would see the strains of daylight sooner.