How We Can Suffer Our Sorrow: ...and Become Wiser, Better, Gentler People

In the end, everyone grieves; but most of us do it privately. Underneath the exterior "bucking up," however, there are steps we all take and retake. We slowly let it sink in that life has changed and will never be quite the same. We select what is important to remember even while we fear we will forget. In this unique and compelling book, Pamela Smith, SS.C.M.—no stranger to her own grief and that of others—offers practical ideas to help us "suffer our sorrows" in ways that allow us to become "kinder, better, gentler people" in the process. Using the contemporary American-language translation of the scriptures from The Message Bible translation by Eugene Peterson, especially the Book of Lamentations and the Letters of Paul, Smith offers a biblical and practical pathway to get to the place where "ain't no one or nobody gonna steal my happy," as one grieving woman put it to the author years ago. Each short chapter offers down-to-Earth insights into the nature of grief, suggestions for dealing effectively with it, a short original prayer, and provocative questions for personal reflection and discussion with others.