This Too Shall Last: Finding Grace When Suffering Lingers
By Ramsey, K.J.
There are a lot of questions that people are asking right now. Questions about how to handle difficult and frustrating circumstances. I think that K.J. is releasing her book at a truly opportune moment. The first sentence of her summary is “This is not a before and after story.” Her story of living and working thru chronic pain is not one she has a happily ever after for. At least not in the standards presented by storytellers.
This makes her story of grace remarkable. All of us will and are experiencing grief as a daily presence. American culture in particular has sought to sanitize and hide pain and death in the realm of sterilized hospitals. That is just not how the world truly works. Learning to accept that realms of grief, sorrow, pain, and discomfort are actually normal is a lesson we all need to learn.
I have spent the past year watching death come on a monthly and sometimes weekly basis. I have watched the stages of grief as children learn how to let their aged parents go. I have been saddened by how many people live in denial about the unpleasant realities of pain and death. I have watched journeys be slow and sudden, and I have seen how the end come for the dying, and the work continues for the living. There is grace and compassion for all these people, yet too often it is buried under the exterior demands and general attitudes of stoicism that generations of men and women have been taught is the only way to handle pain and sorrow. We need more honest and hopeful words.
I hope that many of you reading this review with click the link above and get K.J.’s new book when it releases on May 12. May it bless your heart in the pain and trouble with grace and hope.