In the fall of 1991, Jerry Sittser’s life changed when his wife, mother, and four-year old daughter were killed in a car crash while he and his other three children survived. The accident, as Sittser noted later, forced him down a course “which [he] had to journey whether [he] wanted to or not.”[1] He had to find a way to adjust to his new life as “there was no way out but ahead, into the abyss.”[2] As Sittser walked into the abyss, he kept a journal of his reflections in an effort to help process what was happening in and around him. Friends would later encourage him to write a book on the subject of catastrophic loss, hence the origins of this book.[3]
While the book A Grace Disguised contains vignettes of Sittser’s personal experience, it is not about his experience per se. Rather it is about the “universal experience of loss”[4] and the “transformation that can occur in our lives”[5] through this loss. As Sittser found in his own journey, it isn’t the “experience of loss that becomes the defining moment” of life but the way in which we “respond to loss that matters.”[6] In a way, Sittser’s book is akin to Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning in that both writers focus on how people respond to suffering and loss rather than trying to avoid or deny pain altogether.[7] (Sittser is familiar with Frankl’s book as he references it as something that helped him on his journey through the pain.)[8]
Though the book is fairly short, I found myself struggling to make it through the pages due to the subject material. Losing my wife and/or children through a sudden catastrophic loss like Sittser is one of my secret fears that sometimes keeps me awake at night. Knowing that they could die at any moment though the sheer randomness of the universe brings all kinds of emotions to the surface. It is as Sittser comments in chapter eight, “suffering may be at its fiercest when it is random, for we are then stripped of even the cold comfort that comes when events, however cruel, occur for a reason.”[9]
I, however,
disagree with Sittser’s conclusion that God is in absolute control and that
every event ultimately has a reason.[10]
Instead I embrace the concept that humanity is engaged in a war between the
spiritual forces of good and evil. When bad things happen, they do not happen
due to the will or inaction of the Creator but rather because of the war around
us. Jesus, who is in the trenches with us, promises to take the negative events
in our lives and use them for good through the cruciform power of his love
(Romans 8:18-39). Though this war motif may not encourage everyone, it helps me
deal with the pain that comes from living in this world as it means my life is
part of something bigger than what I see on the surface. Which, as it happens,
is similar to the reason Sittser wants God to be in control.[11] Though we
traveled different paths, in the end both Sittser and myself “choose to believe
that there is a bigger picture”[12] in which
our lives (the good and bad) play a part.
[1] Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2004), 29.
[2] Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised, 29.
[3] Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised, 18.
[4] Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised, 18.
[5] Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised, 17.
[6] Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised, 17.
[7] Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), 80-81.
[8] Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised, 46-48.
[9] Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised, 111.
[10] Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised, 149-161.
[11] Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised, 118-119.
[12] Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised, 118.
A look through the Scriptures, especially the New Testament, reveals a lot of passages about the victory that comes through the new life in the kingdom. We become new people with a new family built upon love, grace, mercy and forgiveness. No matter what pain or sorrow we have experienced before, we now have a chance at a new life. The old is gone; behold the new.
Does this mean that we will be free from every bad thought, addictions or habit? Perhaps, perhaps not. It is not up to me to know the mind of God. What I do know is that Paul lived with a thorn in his side that was not taken away. Perhaps some of you reading this will have things in your lives that won’t go away. To you I say, fight and fight and never stop fighting! We live deep within enemy territory and have been called to advance the rule and reign of God into every area of this planet. To stop fighting is to give up on God and his mission. He is a trustworthy General who is leading an army in the invasion of this present evil age. We, his daughters and sons, have been trusted with the mission of fighting on the front lines. Let us never forget this: let us always continue to fight for the victory we know we have as daughters and sons of the Creator King.