eCondolence.com has compiled a list of suggested reading relating to loss and mourning. Selections are divided by four categories: General, Loss of a Child, For Grieving Children, and Faith-Based Coping.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
H. Norman Wright is a well-respected Christian counselor who has helped thousands of people improve their relationships and deal with grief, tragedy, and other concerns through counseling, seminars and his authorship of and contributions to over 90 books.
SYNOPSIS
Whether one faces loss through personal, family or community disaster, there is potential for change and growth through the loss. Writing from his own experiences, Wright covers such issues as the meaning of grief, why so many blame God during troubles, and strategies for expressing emotions during times of loss.
Richard Exley is author to twenty-nine books. His works have been published in numerous major Christian magazines and he has made special appearances on shows such as 700 Club and Richard Roberts Live.
In When You Lose Someone You Love, a pastor provides tender and compassionate advice to a man suffering a profound grief. This book is meant to show the mourning that grief is a natural and healthy process that God can use to mend broken hearts. The author tenderly walks the reader along the path from sorrow to peace.
Miriam Neff is the founder and president of Widow Connection, and has several projects for widows in Africa. Her one minute feature, New Beginnings, is heard on over 1200 outlets. She is author of ten books.
Neff understands the struggle to comprehend and accept her new life after her husband’s death. Recognizing the need for women to hear from others about the transition, she shares with the reader the practical issues dealing with recovery and change from the loss. From One Widow to Another offers practical advice for those facing the loss of a spouse. Drawing from her own loss, Neff walks with the reader through practical issues to a sense of encouragement.
God’s Care for the Widow is written to comfort and strengthen widows through the challenges of suffering the loss of a husband. The book makes the case that throughout the Old and New Testaments, the God of the Bible makes himself known as a defender and provider for widows. Written under the conviction that the church of Christ is responsible for relieving the distress of widows this book seeks to draw out God’s wisdom for the widow.
Dr. Alla Bozarth is an award-winning poet, Gestalt therapist and Episcopal priest. She has authored some thirty books, several that are a part of the Hazelden series of books on recovery.
A Journey Through Grief brings the sensitivity of a poet, the direction of a counselor and the compassion of a priest to produce thoughtful words that offer practical help through the grieving process.
Gary writes and speaks from more than 30 years of ministry experience, including campus ministry, church-planting in Japan, and three pastorates in Texas and Washington. He now serves as a hospice chaplain, writer, and speaker in central Texas.
In Surviving the Holidays Without You, Gary Roe gives professional and personal counsel to empower people to journey through the difficult steps of processing grief through the holiday seasons. He deals in a sensitive and practical way with unspoken expectations, continual memories and reminders, and the unpredictable emotions and loneliness that accompanies the holidays.
Julie Yarbrough is a native of Dallas, Texas, and the author of the grief ministry program Beyond the Broken Heart: A Journey Through Grief and the book Inside the Broken Heart. Inspired by her personal experience after the death of her husband, Dr. Leighton Farrell, senior minister at Highland Park United Methodist Church for many years, Julie established a support group for widows and widowers and began writing articles and books for persons who are grieving.
In A Journey Through Grief, Yarbrough provides comfort by asserting that grief is not a crisis of faith, but rather a crisis of the heart. Her practical guidance encourages and strengthens during a difficult time. This book is a thoughtful gift to someone coping with the loss of a loved one.
In What to Say When You Don’t Know What to Say, Wright turns a spotlight on helping loved ones cope with loss and tragedy. He reveals practical suggestions of how to communicate through some of the most difficult circumstances of life – those which surround death. Sensitive, practical, and specific, this handy reference includes information you need to be supportive and point to God as the ultimate healer.
Richard Rice is professor of religion at Loma Linda University in Loma Linda, California. He is the author of several books, including God’s Foreknowledge and Man’s Free Will and Reason and the Contours of Faith.
Although suffering and loss is a deeply personal issue, responding to it is often reflective of a blend of our philosophy, theology, ethics and life-experiences. In Suffering and the Search for Meaning, a book that leans toward the academic, Rice provides a blend of intellectual challenge and personal authenticity to dealing with the problems of pain and death.
Tricia Lott Williford was an elementary school teacher before becoming a free-lance writer. As a widow with two preschoolers, she began writing a blog about her loss, sadness and laughter through the tears. Her readership grew dramatically and she became a much sought speaker about recovering from loss around the world.
An elementary school teacher shares the heartbreaking story of the death of her husband and the tender journey back to purpose and peace. In And Life Comes Back, Williford writes with soaring prose about her tender, brave journey as a widow with two young boys in the agonizing days and months that followed his death.
Harold Ivan Smith is a grief specialist on the teaching faculties of Saint Luke’s Hospital, Kansas City, Missouri, and the Carondolet Medical Institute in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. He has facilitated Grief Gatherings, storytelling groups for grievers, at Saint Luke’s Hospital for more than fifteen years.
Grief can become particularly difficult to cope with during the holidays. Looking thoughtfully at the intensity of experiencing loss at the holidays, Smith, in A Decembered Grief, gives insight into working through loss while the world around us celebrates. This book provides comfort and validation to those suffering a recent loss.
C.S. Lewis is one of the most widely renowned authors on Christianity and children’s novel of the 20th century. Lewis is most often known by his series, The Chronicles of Narnia, of which the final book in the series received Carnegie Award, one of the highest marks of excellence in children’s literature.
Written after his wife’s tragic death as a way of surviving the “mad midnight moment,” A Grief Observed is C. S. Lewis’s honest reflection on the fundamental issues of life, death, and faith in the midst of loss. This is a beautiful and unflinchingly honest record of how even a stalwart believer can lose all sense of meaning in the universe, and how he or she can gradually regain his or her bearings.
H. Norman Wright, a licensed Marriage, Family and Child Therapist, has served as a professor at Biola University and Talbot School of Theology while maintaining a private counseling practice. His current focus is in grief and trauma counseling. As a result, he has developed several books dealing with grief and a DVD curriculum for grief counseling.
Sooner or later we all walk the dark journey through the process of grief. Written to encourage anyone who has recently experienced loss, Experiencing Grief is a brief, but powerful tool for helping the reader process through five essential stages of grief which Wright labels as shock, rage, despair, release and finally, peace. This thoughtful book would make an excellent gift to add to a sympathy card.
Philip Yancey is an editor-at-large for Christianity Today magazine and website. He has authored dozens of books, including The Question That Never Goes Away, Prayer, What’s So Amazing About Grace, and The Jesus I Never Knew. Yancey often writes to find answers to the problems of pain, suffering and injustice in the world. At last count, his books have sold over fourteen million copies worldwide, making him one of the best-selling evangelical Christian authors.
In “Where is God When It Hurts?” with grace and compassion, Yancey asks the question that we all ask, wrestles in the same way we all wrestle, and settles on some conclusions that can encourage us all. Using examples from characters in the Bible and drawing on his own personal experience, Yancey looks at why we suffer, why we blame God for it, and why God felt the need to do something about it.